After a lovely Christmas Eve, and a terrific Christmas morning, which caused The Boy to label it "The Best Christmas Ever!" (The Boy had been worried about how the recession would affect his Christmas)...The Husband, The Boy, Little One and myself were packing to go to the beach. Besides being a nice little vacation, we needed to pack up Grandpa's condo which he had just sold. For this reason, we needed to take the big white box truck from work..referred to by my brothers as "The Beverly Hillbillies truck". I was dreading this, especially when The Husband informed me that he was going to "bring a little tile down" for one of the units. The Husband's driving is scary on any given day, but especially when you are carrying thousands of pounds of tile.
We were bringing the 15 year old incontinent dog and the two carsick cats. The idea was to put them in the back of the box truck and cross our fingers. So 5 minutes before we were suppose to leave (The Husband keeps us on a schedule). Little One was suppose to carry her cat to the truck and put her in. Unfortunately, kitty had other ideas, and she took off. Well, what happened next was really impossible to describe. The Husband let out a song of profanity never before heard on Christmas day...and he began chasing the cat all over the neighborhood shouting "If you don't get back here in 3 minutes, I'm leaving you!!" The Boy and I stared at each other, trying desperately not to laugh, and maybe wondering if that cat would, indeed, answer him.
Ok, so 15 minutes later, we were off to the beach. It was quiet in the truck due to the tenseness of the cat chase, but at least we were under way. I asked The Husband how much tile we had in back, and he mumbled something about 10,000 lbs. I asked how much the truck could hold...and he gave me a look that said "Don't ask anymore questions." This worried me even more, but I was determined to have a good attitude. Afterall, it was Christmas, and The Husband knew what he was doing, right? About 45 minutes later, we were on the interstate when we heard a huge sound. Having recently had some car issues, I recognized it as a tire blowing, but The Husband said no. He pulled off and had a look, and determined that the cats had knocked something over in the truck. His answer to this was to put the cats in the front with us. I strongly disagreed with this assesment, but my opinion was ignored. So back on the road, for the next 2 hours, I watched the inside tire slowly deflate and wobble in my rearview window. I tried to tell The Husband this, but he got very annoyed with me and told me I was "stressing everyone out". At this point, I began praying for our safety and repeating my maiden name over and over again. Not surprisingly, another half hour later, another big bang sounded. "What was that!?" yelled The Husband. "That" I replied calmly, 'was the rest of the tire unraveling. You now have one less tire."
I am assured that God was watching over us, because we were near an exit...and the exit had a hotel. Somehow, The Husband maneuvered the truck into the hotel parking lot. And it died in peace. When he got out to look...he saw that the tire was completely off. "I'll check us in" he said.
Ok, time to asses our situation. Christmas Day. Everything closed. Flat tire that is not a normal size. No food. I again said another prayer...this time asking for patience and the ability not to kill The Husband. We unloaded our bags and went to our room. The kids were ok...The Boy always finds a bright side. He had internet access and his computer and new DS games. He was good to go. Little One scouted out a snack machine and workout room. The Husband sat on the bed in depressed funk. He made one call to a local tire place and determined the situation hopeless. I was suddenly very grateful that we were alive and well...and in a new, clean hotel. I logged on my laptop and typed in "emergency 24 hour service" along with the size of our flat tire...and lo and behold...up popped the name of a 24/7 service that had that tire. The Husband reluctantly called...and a nice fellow named Chad answered and said yes, he could come and change the tire. Well, the next few seconds were crucial...as The Husband started to try and "negotiate' the price. I had to quickly give him the mother of all "Looks"...and he quickly agreed to pay the 10,000,000 dollar ransom that someone is able to extract for this type of service on Christmas Day.
From that point on, things improved. The Husband rallied a bit. The plan was to let the guy fix the tire and then unload some tile so we became "legal" weight. The Husband spilled out the whole story of the "tile weight issue" that he had neglected to tell me....and we figured that we were a couple of thousand lbs. over.
Little One dragged me to the workout room where we ran off our frustrations. Then we hit the snack machine for dinner. As we were standing there debating between pop tarts and crackers, the only other man staying in the hotel walked up behind me. He stood very close with a big grin on his face. This made Little One and myself very uncomfortable, so we were forced to hurry our decision. There is just no way to choose a proper meal from the vending machine with someone watching you.
Later that night, after the tire was fixed and the tile unloaded, we all watched 'Buddy the Elf' on tv....and I felt a huge sense of relief. It may have been a horrible day, but things had turned out ok. We had to smuggle the 15 yr old incontinent dog in for obvious reasons. She slept in the bath tub.
The next morning, we devoured the hotel breakfast at dawn and headed to Home Depot where they kindly unloaded another palette of tile for us, just for safe measure. We headed to the beach, all the while holding our breath that it did not happen again.
I have never been so happy to be somewhere safe and sound. What a relief to be here. Unfortunately, The Husband had to unload all of the remaining tile so that he could make the 4 hour trip back to the hotel this morning to pick up the remaining tile.
So all's well that ends well. The Husband promises that we will never make a trip in the truck again. This makes me very happy. And here we are at the beach. It will take me a few days to decompress. The stress level in the truck was rather high...
It makes me wonder what on earth the New Year can bring.....
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