One of Those Days

The day started out fine, like any other, and out we went to Cody's violin lesson this morning. Upon arriving at the driver side door of the van, I noticed a suspicious fluid that had drained out from underneath the van.  My head uttered the words I dared not speak:  "Oh please Lord. Not again." Further inspection indicated it was green fluid.  The same fluid that was spraying out the back of the van a week ago.  I immediately dialed the mechanic who, $1400 dollars later, had fixed the van.  He told me to go ahead and bring it in.

Easier said than done.  While I was driving the 45 minutes it took me to get from the violin lesson location to the mechanic, the van started to overheat.  Calmly, I dialed my husband, who would know what to do. He advised me to turn on the heat and roll down the windows. Mission accomplished.  The temperature gauge quickly fell out of the danger zone.  I started searching for my towing service card just in case.

We made it safely to our mechanic in one piece and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  I was so grateful to have made it there without any smoking or other strange things happening from underneath the hood of our van!  

I took the boys to the nearest location to keep us occupied, because we were technically stranded until we had working wheels again.  So we ended up at Target for three hours attempting to kill time.  We covered every square inch of the store, from the clearanced school supply items to the kleenex aisle.  

We finally got the call we were waiting for:  This leak was a new one.  It was not coming from the area they'd worked on last week.  I was actually disappointed because that meant that there was yet another problem with the van.  I meekly asked him what the damage was going to be while desperately clinging to the cart I was pushing.  

He said, "Well, technically, this is a new problem, but I'm not going to charge you."

GLORY!  OH THE JOY!!!

And so the end of this story has a happy ending.  I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for the outcome.  The flip side is that we got nothing done today, but I suppose that doesn't really matter.  

Our pocketbook was spared.  Well, unless you count the $18 I spend at Target.