Just our luck

Have you ever tried to do something really important and good, that you really want to do and it seems like you get stopped at every turn?

Take for instance - right now we are working on the certification for foster-adopt (yes, I guess this is our announcement to everyone) and we have to take these classes to get certified. There are 8 weeks of classes and we can't be certified until they are all done - so we want to get them done quickly. We met with a case worker at the end of May, but couldn't get started because I was switching jobs and worked on Thursday. Then Steve was going to be out of town for two weeks - so we waited again. Then a couple of things came up and finally we could start three weeks ago. Yeah! Only 7 weeks left.

But then last week Steve got the stomach flu really bad and we had to miss. So that left tonight. We were all ready to go - we had a babysitter and I was on time to pick up Steve from work and we drove to Subway on the way to class to get our dinner and we get back in the car to go (we were about 1 mile away from the class in GJ) and the car wouldn't start!

WHAT???!!! We were going to miss again??!! Well, I tried not to give up hope yet. We quickly determined that it was the battery. Well, conveniently, the Subway was in the Walmart shopping center - so we just walked over and bought a battery. Steve has changed many batteries and it only takes about 10 minutes. But we discovered a problem. One of the battery terminals was rusted on and Steve could not get it off. We called our friend who owns the Aammco (also conveniently next to Walmart) to see if he could help. He had left already, but told us to call the shop anyway and someone could help. They did - someone came by to let Steve use a tool to try and get it off. Well, that didn't work. So we tried to pry off the cable. But then it broke. So we had to go back tow Walmart a 2nd time, but they didn't have the cable we needed, so we had to walk to the Auto Zone was about 2 blocks away down the street in the 100 degree heat. One of the employees getting off work was nice enough to give us a ride back. But Steve still needed a deep socket to get the old cable out, so we walked back to Walmart a 3rd time to get the socket set we needed and then I hung out in Walmart while Steve worked on the battery. He couldn't get the old cable off. After another hour or so a man came to Subway to eat who just happened to be a mechanic and he helped Steve get it back in and now the car runs great! Whew!

So just our luck - we miss yet another class, spend $200 bucks, and spend 3 hours in the heat trying to replace a battery that should have taken 10 minutes.

But it was also just our luck that our car died next to Walmart, Subway, Aammco, and Autozone, instead of on the highway or some other out of the way place. It was just our luck that several people offered to help. And, it was just my luck that I have the best husband (hero) in the world, who knew he could fix it and did so with the help of others (and their tools). And it was just Steve's luck that he finally got the deep socket set he has been needing/wanting for a long time!