For Sale - One Set of Frayed Nerves, Stress Included, Good for Parts.

I'll offer you a good deal on a set of used nerves, fairly frayed and in need of a good vacation.


I hate moving. I mentioned that earlier but it bears repeating. I hate moving, and yet here I am in a vocation that is rivaled only by the military and certain professional moochers (Kato Kaelin) for the number of moves required.

Yesterday was a prime example of why I hate it. There seems to be a giant "crap magnet" that is activated when we begin the process. I'm not referring to our possessions, but it would be apropos. I'm referring to all the other crap that happens which keeps us from dealing with the crap we really need to.

We were at a meeting (which went pretty well) and went out to the car and when we turned the key - nothing happened. Well, we have AAA for a reason, so we gave them a call. My wife innocently announced, "by the way, we need to go by the closest gas station when we do get it started." After waiting 45 minutes, this massive flatbed towtruck arrives, and out jumps the driver with this dinky little red box. He cheerfully announces, "This will get you going in no time" and proceeds to hook it up to the battery. He waits for a sec and then tells my wife to give it a try. She did. Again with the nothing. He frowns and jiggles the wires and has her try it again. Nope. Still nothing. When your rescuer starts coaxing and sweet talking his equipment, you know you've got problems. "Come on, you can do it." At this point, he decides to try the "big battery" on the truck. We pushed the car out into the middle of the driveway so he could get to it. Did I mention we were in a hospital parking lot? I had visions of an ambulance wheeling around the corner and flinging the patient out the back doors as it served to avoid us. The driver hooked up these massive cables to our little battery and then to the suitcase sized battery on his rig. I had visions of our little car blowing up when he cranked up the diesel, but nothing happened. Really. Lots of nothing. After about ten minutes of trying our little PT coughed to life. We all cheered, and he unhooked the cables. As he was returning to his truck, the PT sputtered and died and again refused to start. I yelled at the towtruck driver over the roar of his truck and he looked quite surprised. He was even more surprised when he touched the jumper cables to the cab of his truck (while they were still hooked to his battery.) NICE fireworks, but fortunately, no injuries. We decided that maybe it was out of gas, so our nice towtruck driver went to get us a can of gasoline. After dumping that in the tank we repeated the process with the cables, again it tookforever before the car started. When he tried to remove the cables it died immediately. "Uh oh," he says, "you may have a bad alternator." I can't afford an alternator, we're moving, for goodness sakes'. At that point, we had literally less than $50 to get through the month (no I'm not making that up) the rest was budgeted for utilities and moving expenses. While we're absorbing that bit of news. The towtruck driver looks up and earnestly says, "Geez, you guys may need to call AAA for a tow truck." Huh? I mean, his tow truck was currently taking up half the lot. Turns out, he needed to go to Knoxville, and couldn't come back for us for at least 3 hours. Never mind that our garage was on the way to Knoxville, he couldn't take us. Sigh.

Note- our driver (from Airport Towing in Morristown) was very helpful and nice. He had just run out of time for our call and needed to move to the next one. It was frustrating on our part, but he did really try to help us. I would call them again.

We called our mechanic who said, "yep, it sound like an alternator." Then he added ominously, "those can get really expensive on those cars." Great.

While waiting on our second AAA tow truck, my wife and I walked into the hospital to grab a bite of lunch. We were commiserating on these things happening, but we reminded each other that God is really good to us. You see, our budget was down to $50, but I still had that paycheck in my pocket. If we had an emergency car repair we could pay it and clean up the mess it would make of our budget later. We've had that happen before. We'll have some major breakdown right after I've gotten my check. If this had happened last week, we would have been in deep, deep trouble. God is very good.

In due course, our other tow truck arrived, and we were heading to the garage in short order. I got my truck and met my wife at the garage. Our mechanic friend sent us out for a new battery since ours seemed to be fried. When we returned, he installed it and then proceeded to check the alternator. "You just dodged a big bullet," he said with a smile as he closed the hood. "Rebuilt alternators for your car run $238, but yours is okay." Whew. Thank You, God! A new battery is much better than a new alternator and battery.

By this time, it was 3:00. Our plan was to have an early appointment so I could be home by 10 working on packing. Oh well, plans change. We're another day behind on preparing for the move, but at least her car is running and we didn't have to spend all our budget on repairs.

We'll get through this. We've gotten through worse, but that doesn't make this stress any more pleasant.

Oh well, God is still good.

On the budget front, we were able to re-arrange some of the bills and now we're in a much better position for the move.

Peace,
John

PS- pray for those with money trouble and car trouble