Our car... Our poor car. Somehow over the last few years it got named George. No, he's not poor because we named him George. Completely side story- Matt wanted to name it Faragorn or something like the forest in Lord of the Rings. I laughed at it because our car is anything but the noble, old, somewhat dangerous but incredibly powerful forest in those books. I suggested George because I thought 'George of the Jungle' and how our car seems to collect dings but at least it gets us where it needs to go and we love it. Emmaline picked up on that and never let that name go. Now she walks around talking about George all the time.
Anyway, so back to the story. A month or so ago we started hearing a squeal in the car. It is bad. Yicky, not fun and definitely ear splitting. Matt took the car to the shop and they said that the piece that was broken is the Harmonic Pulley Stabilizer. We called several places on island and looked through at least a half dozen websites trying to find the part that would fix the car and we just couldn't find it. So we thought- maybe the car will just fix itself? Maybe its not as bad as it sounds? Maybe we'll stumble across the piece we need if we aren't looking for it? (Ha!)
Yesterday I was coming home from a church training and suddenly there was a really bad sound. It sounded like I'd gotten something stuck under the car and was dragging it. I let myself coast downhill a little bit longer thinking it would just dislodge if there was something there- but that didn't happen. So I tried pulling off the road, only to discover that the power steering was gone. I yanked the wheel enough to get me somewhere safe, jumped out and checked under the car and then called Matt.
To make a longish story shorter, Matt found a ride, got a babysitter and came to rescue me. Our car was towed back to our house (we don't know any shops that could help us and I didn't want our car sitting at an unknown shop until we are able to find the piece we need...) and is now sitting in the driveway.
Our awesome new neighbor came over and helped Matt poke around enough to figure out what was wrong and it turns out that that same piece we were told needed to be replaced had completely broken off. So, maybe we shouldn't have procrastinated? At this point, its probably going to be months before we can find the part and get it reinstalled.
So, for the punking part-
At the Relief Society Birthday dinner a really good friend offered us the use of her car because her husband is deployed currently and they don't have to have two. I was really relieved for her offer because Matt was already looking at needing to get rides everywhere he had to go and I'd pretty much be stuck at home until we bought a new van.
I picked up the car from her house after the dinner and drove it home. When I walked in the door I said "If anyone knocks, you know NOTHING about what happened" (Totally cheesy, right? Would you have fallen for that?) Matt took the bait and asked what happened. I told him that I was so frustrated that the dinner had gone passed the expected time and then my ride kept chit chatting and I got annoyed so I took her keys and just drove off.
He. Believed. Me.
I was shocked that my husband thought I could possibly be a car thief. But he did! He asked a few more questions, scratched his head, and went back to playing video games. When I asked if that was all he was going to say he looked at me like I was crazy. I asked if he was going to call the cops on me and he laughed. He wasn't going to turn his wife in... (ah, thats sweet honey! But if I really did commit a crime? I'd expect you to do the right thing!)
I finally, about half hour later, admitted that I didn't steal the car and that it was being loaned to us. I've got to tell you- I've never seen him so relieved in his life! Not only did I not commit a major crime but I also fixed our car problem momentarily :)
He later told me that it was pretty convincing because I actually had the car in the driveway... Seeing is believing, right? And because I've never played a practical joke on him like that before.
Haha. I'm shocked that he believed me, but I'm pretty proud of myself for pulling something over my husband like that!
Our next adventure will be to buy a new car. Yay for car buying? Ugh. But at least its not bad timing. We have the money and the plan was to buy a van soon anyway. So its just expedited. No biggy, right?
