The washer thinks the lid is open all the time. More accurately, the little button that depresses when you shut the lid is now missing. It has been replaced with a peg fashioned out of rolled paper. That won't last long. Fashioning a stronger peg must be done eventually. The part (like we could find that--the thing is a million years old) would no doubt cost a billion dollars IF we could even find it. I still posit that the washer is thinking, though, because it has to in order to prove conspiracy with the vehicles.
The first vehicle to go was the CRV. Timing belt. YEAH. Now the poor thing needs a new motor--that is NOT cheap. That was Friday night. On Tuesday (which for other reasons seemed like the worst day of both mine and Attrition's life) the truck blew a belt. It is in pieces in the driveway where the attempt to repair it was foiled by darkness and rain. The free parts are in my bedroom--yes, I said my BEDROOM--because the cat pack would spread them from one end of the house to the other. The half truck...wait...they're both trucks. OK one is an SUV. The half-truck needs an entire exhaust system because the one it HAD is 85% missing. How it keeps running is a mystery. The half-SUV has had just about every part replaced that we can reasonably afford. And, no, two half-trucks don't make a whole.
So. Tomorrow, I'm going to take the truck that sounds like a Harley to school with me. I really am gonna need a sign that says...Oh, I don't know..."Please don't stare"...OR..."Shut up and get back in the Beemer your daddy bought you." That was rude. But true. Taking classes near the nation's number one planned community makes the way my family lives look like the Clampetts at times and usually I have no trouble with this, but you just don't see anyone's legs sticking out from under their cars around here. Ever, come-to-think-of-it. And I've lived in this area since 1990.
What a sad thing! I remember playing outside while my dad did his own oil changes out in the driveway as did all the other dads. Moms lined their chairs up between the houses and chattered. There was barbecue. We ran in packs--the kids, that is. Now, well, that sounds like an archaic, ridiculous, but imaginative dream.
However archaic or ridiculous, I still wish that dream were real. That my boys could run around our land without having to do anything but say "I'm goin' out mom!" and I could say, "Be back before dark!" Or maybe I'd have a little bell like Christine Johnson's mom and they'd have to stay where they could hear it and come when I rang. I don't know. All I know now is that they aren't as free as they once were to learn how to explore on their own. When do they develop that kind of independence? When they're sixteen and can finally explore on their own with a giant metallic death machine. Nice. I can try to give my children experiences to explore, but the point is that if I am a "good" mother these days I don't really leave them in situations where they are truly independent. Just hang in there for a minute with me.
You see, when Attrition's car lost it's timing belt, he was on an isolated piece of road between Houston and a Lake about an hour-and-a-half away. It's a cellular dead-zone. Assuming you have a phone and survive the experience uninjured, you need to know what to do. Attrition and I, we know that. Not just because we were taught what to do, but because we had little experiences of being alone when things went wrong. Those little experiences got bigger over time--not out of neglect or maltreatment, but because we were allowed and able to accept greater and greater responsibilities and because it was safe to leave us to do so at the time. Now that, well, it isn't safe to do so...
I wonder sometimes.
Scat
OH, and Tuesday really stank for me 'cause the Gross Anatomy practical was sprung on our class two days early and on the same day as a lecture exam on the skeletal system's anatomy and physiology...only 1500 bones/bone markings on the practical. That's all. This exam is regulated by the school, so every student takes the same one versus the others that vary from professor to professor. Makes it harder to study for. Yes, three people actually broke down in tears. No word yet as to whether or not the other classes had their practicals given to them two days early. I sorta doubt it. I'm not even gonna touch Attrition's bad day...made mine a cake walk.
No comments:
Post a Comment