Mayday!

It's May Day, everyone...but that is not the inspiration for the title of this blog. It was inspired by a true story associated with an also-named cry for help. So, Jeff was in Toronto this past week for work. He was slated to return yestereday evening. Since he was going to be gone over the weekend, I decided to take the kids to Haskell to visit my grandparents. We had a really wonderful visit with them and then headed home yesterday afternoon. Our trip took us through a quaint little place known as "The Middle of Nowhere," and just as we got there, my "check engine light" came on. I have exactly no knowledge of the workings of a car, so this was quite conerning to me. Even more concerning was the fact that I was alone with two small children. But what really tipped the scale for me was when I reached for my cell phone and realized that I not only didn't have service, but my phone was practically mocking me by putting up a picture of a phone with a slash through it. There was literally not a building in sight, so I just kept driving. Finally, I arrived in the metropolis of Goldthwaite and whipped into the first gas station I saw, after checking to see if they had a payphone. It was then that I realized that I had almost no change. I did get off a call to my dad (I knew Jeff should be on a plane about then) to ask him if this light was something I should really be concerned about. He tried to talk me through a series of things to check under the hood. Long story short, after dealing with a couple of high school boys who really wanted to be helpful but weren't, a truck driver who didn't have a clue about anything, a police officer who delivered a message that wasn't quite right, and after writing a check in the store in order to get more change for the payphone, several more phone calls to my dad and a phone call to Jeff (where I found out things were going none too well for him either), I made arrangements for my parents to just come and get me and the kids and take us to their house. Then I proceeded to wait in the fairly dark parking lot of the now-closed convenient store while my nerves became more and more frayed. Finally my parents arrived, my dad checked out the situation and decided it was best to just leave the van there overnight. So, we unloaded everything from my van into his truck and headed to Belton. When we finally got to a place where my cell phone worked, I found out that Jeff was having his own run of bad luck and wouldn't be arriving back in Austin until around 1:00 am--he should have been back in Austin at 8:30 pm. Then, when I talked to him this morning, I found out that when he finally got here and left the airport, he ran into some kind of road obstruction and took a detour which had him driving in circles for 45 minutes. We were finally all reunited this afternoon and were able to get my van back over to Austin. Ruth's take on all this: "This is such an adventure. First, Granny and Grandaddy's house, then Nana and Papa's house! Wow! What a bonus!" At least someone was having a good time! Never a dull moment, I tell you!