The saying goes – “when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade”.  Yeah – well sometimes, it’s just a big ‘ol bag of damn lemons (that nobody asked for or wanted).  That pretty much describes my past week.  Here’s a sample of the fun and frolic I’ve been experiencing over the past few days.

I was in a project meeting this past Thursday at work when my cell phone rings.  It’s my youngest daughter, and there are lots of heated voices in the background.  She had her older sister and mother in the car, and they were on their way to their annual eye doctor appointments.

They were driving “Stan”, the 1999 Toyota Camry that has served us well over the past twenty years – so much so that I recently rewarded his years of faithful service with historic tags (don’t laugh – I don’t have to take him for Emissions Inspections anymore – and I swear I’m going to put him in a parade).  Anyway, “Stan” decides to pick that moment to literally die at an intersection outside of town, and my youngest reported that there was smoke rolling out of the hood and all of the indicator lights suddenly came on right before he gave up the ghost.

I told the girls to try and get “Stan” off to the shoulder and I’d be on my way to rescue them.  I arrived to find three pissed off women standing beside his lifeless form, pulled off to the shoulder and attracting numerous gawkers and rubberneckers as they passed by.  I called AAA and arranged for a flatbed to pick up the car and take it to a local mechanic, and the girls cancelled their eye appointments for another day.

So as we’re waiting for the flatbed, a second car coming up the highway literally catches fire and pulls off to the shoulder – a mere fifty feet behind us.  You can’t make this stuff up.  The occupants safely exit, call 911, and the fire departments and police are quickly dispatched to deal with the situation.

Meanwhile, my flatbed arrives.  While attempting to back-up to get to “Stan”, the driver inadvertently hits a road sign with his driver side mirror, violently and most permanently bending said mirror out of place (the road sign amazingly seemed unharmed).  He shrugs it off and begins to work with me on paperwork, but is standing there puzzled after I tell him that the make and model of the car is a Toyota Camry.

“Everything OK?” – I asked.

“Do you know how to spell ‘Toyota’?  I’m drawing a blank here,” he replied.

Wow.

So, we get through that and he begins to hook up the car.  His cell phone rings and I see him look past me – about fifty feet down the road.

“Red jeep?”  Yeah, I’m looking at it right now.  Its right next to the one I’m loading up now.  No, I’m serious.”  He glances at me a few times.  “Uh-huh – uh-huh.  OK, thanks.”  He hangs up and sheepishly looks at me, then drops the bombshell.

“Uhh, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I have to go over here and take care of this jeep first.  Since it was a police call, they take priority – but I’ll be back to get you as soon as I can.”

I could have gotten angry and raged like a caged water buffalo, but what was the point?  It was going to happen, and this poor guy was only doing his job, so I silently nodded.  This is apparently how my life works.

Then it started raining.

This is when I started looking around for the ‘Candid Camera’ crew, or was waiting for Ashton Kuchar to drive up and tell me I was on MTV’s ‘Punked’.  Surely, this was not happening.

But it was.

So I break the news to the ladies, and we then got to sit in my car along the roadside for another hour of quality time while waiting for our flatbed to return.  Now, if you haven’t had the chance to spend an extended period of time trapped in a car (in the rain) with some agitated females, I can’t recommend it enough.  What a joyous afternoon.

‘Stan’ is now in the hospital (aka – at the mechanic) and we await word on his future.

Fingers crossed.