We are (or were) a four-car family, which makes things sound alittle grander than they actually are.
One of our four cars is a 1976 Dodge Aspen I bought last summerat a church fair. The car had 150,000 miles on the odometer at thetime, but as my husband said, "At least when a car has that manymiles on it, you know you aren't getting a lemon."
Then we have our 1966 Plymouth Valiant, a car whose odometerstopped running altogether a number of years back. A wonderful,practically magical car, but one that starts only for my husband,Steve.
The apparent prize of our fleet is a minivan that we bought newthree years ago for more money than our total net income during thefirst year of our marriage. A car whose purchase we justified bytelling each other, "Finally, we'll have a totally dependablevehicle."
And from the day the warranty expired, scarcely a month hasgone by that our minivan doesn't have to go into the shop with oneproblem or another.
Our fourth vehicle is a 1960 Jeep whose chief purpose is to giveSteve something to tinker with on those rare occasions when the othervehicles are running smoothly. One of the nice things about the Jeepis that you can usually find a flower or two growing up through theseat. The Jeep hasn't made it into town for about three years now.
Well, last week it was the Aspen's turn to be inspected, andthough its motor proved sound, the body was too rusted for the car tobe approved. So we retired the car. One down, two to go.
I had taken the week off work, with the goal of doing somespecial thing with my children every single day. And on thisparticular day the plan was to clean up the house and then drive to anearby city, where each of my sons was planning to purchase a newHe-Man figure with the money he'd earned doing jobs for me. Thenwe'd go out to dinner at McDonald's and, to cap off the day, watchthe new Masters of the Universe movie.
I'd never seen my sons work so hard or well as they did that dayin anticipation of our big trip. And so at half past 2, with thehouse shining, we dressed up and headed for the van. Whose door oneof my children had left open some hours before, causing all thelights to stay on and the seat-belt buzzer to buzz until the batteryhad gone dead.
My boys were disappointed when I broke the news that we weren'tgoing anywhere. "But maybe," I said, "Dad will come home from workearly enough that he can give us a jump-start with the Valiant. Andwe can still have dinner and see the movie."
Well, Steve made it home by 5 and jump-started the van. We leftit running a while to charge the battery. Only when we set off onour trip there was green liquid dripping from under the front end andsmoke surrounding the hood. We'd overheated.
So we went back in the house. Had a few more tears and (becausethere would no longer be time for McDonald's) some tuna sandwiches.Then tried again.
This time we made it five miles before the overheating lightflashed on again and the van died. We sat in silence for a moment,while I counted to 10 in French, Spanish, Chinese and pig Latin.Then I piled everyone out of the car, made our way to a phone booth,and called Steve to come get us. We transferred all our toys, books,beach gear and tapes from the van into the Valiant and set out forhome.
The next day, we headed into our local car-repair shop, where wedetermined that there had been major damage to the van's radiator.The owner, taking pity on me, gave us a new loaner car: a spiffywhite Malibu. We transferred all of our toys, books, beach gear andtapes from the Valiant into the loaner and headed home.
I called my friend Laurie to suggest that we get together for apicnic at the beach. She said, "Great!" and all morning long as Icleaned the house and packed our picnic I was looking forward tostretching out on my towel beside my friend and telling her mytroubles. And then jumping in the water to swim them all away.
We set out for the beach at a quarter to 12. Five miles downthe road, with the tension of the last 24 hours already draining outof me, I reached to turn on the car radio. The instant I turned thedial, horrible black smoke began pouring into the front seat so thickit was all I could do to pull off the road. We hiked home carryingour picnic and our beach toys. Called the repair shop. They'd beout with a tow truck in an hour.
The tow truck arrived to carry us and the dead Malibu into town.Because tow trucks like this one go 8 miles an hour on roads likeours, the trip took the better part of an hour. When we got to therepair shop we waited while a new loaner car was made ready for us,and I opened our picnic and handed my sons their sandwiches, whichthey both dropped in the dirt.
Too hot and weary to scold, I announced we'd get an ice-creamcone, but when we got to the stand, it was closed. So I bought themeach a Popsicle at the grocery store instead, took their hands andheaded back toward the repair shop, thinking of the special week ofactivities I had been planning with my children and filled withself-pity.
About two days earlier, our little town had installed afountain, and evidently a bunch of kids had filled the thing withsoap suds, which had filled an area the size of our kitchen withlarge, fluffy bubbles spilling out in all directions.
I guess this is the sort of thing chambers of commerce regard asundesirable, but all I can tell you is that my sons caught sight ofthose bubbles and forgot about the closed ice-cream stand, the beachit was now too late to get to, the missed shopping trip and movie,the uneaten dinner at McDonald's.
They played in those bubbles for the better part of an hour -piling them on their heads, blowing them into the wind, makingbeards, mustaches, funny noses, funny ears.
When we finally moved on to pick up our car, my son Charlietook my hand and looked at me with a totally euphoric expression."Boy I sure am lucky," he said. "I got to ride in a tow truck and seea tire changed and eat a Popsicle and play with bubbles. This surewas a good day."
Which leaves a person with a lot of conclusions about how it'sthe little things in life that matter, how every cloud has a silverlining, and it's all a matter of perspective. If I were really atogether person, I might be saying those things myself.
But I will say I wanted my children to have a happy,action-packed and exciting week.
And you know what? They did.
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