Murphy Blows

Dear Mr. Murphy,
I do not care for you or your law. So there.

You know that it's inevitable that when your husband leaves the state to start a new job in another state, something rather major will go wrong the first day he is gone. I waited. Saturday went by rather normally. Kylie and I went to the Chandler Light Parade. Danni marched in the light parade. Shannon went to sleep over at a friend's house. All was well.

Saturday night, Kylie and I get home from the light parade. Danni calls me and says that she is coming home, and that her car is acting weird. Weird? Like what's it doing? Well, she says, when she goes over 25 mph, the car makes a loud noise and starts shaking.

Wonderful.

So she gets home right about the time that Shannon calls me from the mall, wanting to know if I can come and pick up her two friends and her and take them back to the girl's house where they are spending the night.

Sure, why not?

I decide to take Danni's car, so I can see what she's talking about with the noise and the shaking.

As soon as I hit 25-30 mph, I see exactly what she's talking about. It feels like the car is shaking and shimmying right underneath me. Clearly, it's not an engine problem, it's more towards the middle or the back of the car. In fact, I stopped the car in the middle of the residential street I was on, got out of the car and made sure that one of the back wheels wasn't coming off. Because that's what it felt like.

I continued, slowly, taking mostly residential streets where I could, to the mall. I picked up Shannon and her friends and took them to the other girl's house. Slowly.

Then I went home and called hubby. He said from what I was describing, it sounded like a transmission problem, and that it was probably having a problem when it went into third gear.

Fantastic.

He called his sister to have her husband come over and look at the car on Sunday. Ken did a lot of work on this car, the '93 Dodge Intrepid, when we first got it, and he didn't mind coming and looking at it at all.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. Ken comes over, gets under the car, and sees the problem immediately. There is some sort of arm on the back driver's side wheel that apparently has snapped in half. I'm not sure exactly what it's called, but I'm guessing it has something to do with holding the wheel onto the car. He called it an arm...something.

Anyway, he said it was a pretty easy fix, he just needed to get the part. Which of course, is kind of an obscure part that a part store most likely wouldn't carry. You'd need to get it from the dealer, which is always expensive. So he does what most mechanics do, and goes looking for the part in a junkyard. He's done this for us before, and it's always worked out well...and by well I mean cheap.

He was supposed to go looking for the part this morning, but so far I have not heard from him. It's like 1pm, and I'm waiting. And this is stressing me right the hell out, let me tell you. Because I have gone from three working cars and three drivers to two drivers and one car.

With three kids at three different schools, and me at work, you can see how this becomes an issue.

My plan today was that I would drive Danni to school at 7am. Then she would get a ride home from a friend. She gets out at 2:15pm. My parents would pick Kylie up from her school at 2:40pm and take her home, where ideally, Danni would already be there. Then Shannon, who gets out at 3:35pm, would walk home. Until Danni remembered that she had to stay after school because she's the teaching assistant for beginning dance, and she has to go to their recital rehearsal after school.

Ok. Change of plans. So my parents will pick Kylie up, and take her to their house. I will pick her up from their house on my way home from work. Shannon still walks home. Danni should be done with her thing about the time I get home, so I can pick her up. If she has band practice tonight, which I think she does, she can just take my van.

I backed her car out into the driveway so Ken had access to it. Problem is, when he was messing around with it earlier, the tire got turned in such a way that I had problems backing it up straight. After much twisting and turning of the wheel, I finally got it out of the garage, but now three of the tires are facing forward, and the rear driver's wheel is at a definite angle. Danni says it looks like it's leaning up against the car. I'm hoping I didn't do more serious damage when I backed it out. And I still haven't heard anything from them about getting the danged part.

On top of that, Steve is moving into his new apartment today, and starting his job tomorrow. I'm also totally stressed about money, because we're burning through his moving allowance rather quickly (stuff for the apartment, warmer clothes, apt. deposit, first month's rent, plane ticket back for Christmas, gas for the drive to Denver, he's going to need to go to the grocery store, etc) Luckily, Comcast is setting him up with cable and internet without an installation fee. Although from what I've heard about Comcast and their customer service, we're in for a fun ride there.

He should get his last check from his old job on Friday, but he only worked half the pay period, and he may or may not get paid for all his unused vacation time. I really hope he does, because he had a lot of it. But with Computer Company, you never know.

I don't know where in the pay period he is starting his new job, so I'm not sure exactly when his first check from them will show up.

So what I'm saying is that I'm stressed out.

Help.

Send wine. Or rum. Or Xanax. All of the above.





Edited to Add: So as soon as I take a Xanax to calm my ass down, my sister-in-law calls and says that Ken found the part and that it's going to cost...drumroll please...$28. I can so handle that. If he can fix the thing for $28, there might just be a little something extra in it for him.

I meant I'll pay him some money! Get your mind out of the gutter. Gross.


Please please please let this fix the problem. I promise never to call you a bastard again, Mr. Murphy, if this works out.


Amen.