Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Tuesday Twitter Achoo


After months, maybe years of observation, I have decided that I'm allergic to newspapers--not so much the content but possibly the newsprint.

Virtually every morning at blog-posting time, which immediately follows newspaper-reading time---except for a couple of minutes fixing the latte, of course---I'm recovering from the Big Sneezes.  

This morning's Tuesday editions with their stories of naughty motorcycle gang/club members getting arrested, of Eric Plummer's correct assessment of the need to stand behind the BSU Broncos and of all the health news made me sneeze more than ever.  

Before divulging the results of my findings to the world here on the blog about my sneezing, I told Bill.  He just grunted an "uh-huh" and kept on reading the Daily Bee, which I had already handed over to him.  The sneezing usually occurs during my Spokesman reading.

I'm sure nobody really cares about this information, but I sure am glad to stop sneezing once blog time begins each morning.  

Maybe there IS a silver lining that print papers may one day go defunct.  Still, I'll trade a sneeze or two for my much beloved newspaper time. 

Bill has now left, announcing that he has left the Ford Ranger for me this morning.  "You've got the Ranger and the  [new-old] motor home to choose from," he said while walking out the door.  That got my little brain to conjuring up a fun image.  

Maybe it would be fun to drive the motor home to Wal-Mart today.  Maybe not.

My driving adventures late yesterday afternoon turned sour, just as I signaled and turned into the right lane on First Avenue in downtown Sandpoint.

The Jimmy SUV died on me, and I mean completely.  Fortunately,  I was able to maneuver it out of the right lane but with its butt still sticking slightly out into traffic right in front of the Cedar Street Bridge.

My mother was sitting in the passenger seat, and I was sitting on the side where a semi traveling through maneuvering that tricky corner and making one false move could easily scrape me from my seat and take me right on down Cedar Street and maybe even as far as Bonners Ferry before noticing the extra appendage dangling from the rear trailer.

We had just returned from Costco.   Mother was wearing her two new hearing aids.  

She can hear me now!

So I worked extra hard to avoid uttering what I normally say when any daily disaster strikes. 

This was definitely a "you-must-remain-calm" moment."  I tried starting the car several times.  The motor turned but not completely over.  

Thank God for cell phones.  I called Bill.  Thank God he was still at the office.  After explaining the situation, I could hear too-------only in this case it was several long lapses of silence.

"Are you there?" I asked at least twice.

Bill was busy using his thinking cap on how to best solve this latest of Marianne calamities.  The most recent involved the brush hog just last week where the driveline broke----while I was operating it, of course.  

He finally said he would call Dan Smith, our resident wrecker man.  Dan likes us because, of late, we've been steady customers.  Bill  also said he would come to rescue me as soon as he maneuvered through the late afternoon traffic from his office on HWY 2 through downtown. 

Next, I called my sister Barbara.  Thank God, she was still in town and just leaving the high school.  She came and picked up Mother and her hearing aids and took her home.

Some nice people from the Cedar Street Bridge came out and helped me get the hood open.  The nice man who runs the restaurant said everything under the hood looked okay to him.

After I demonstrated to him that everything was not okay under the hood by turning the key a few times, he just went back to his restaurant.

Dan showed up pretty quickly with his wrecker and got me, the Jimmy and the Costco goodies out of our precarious position and took us down to Taylor Parker for repairs [well, maybe it was just the Jimmy that needed repairs].   

The on-the-street assessment is a fuel pump, and the assessment by all those men who know these things also includes big dollar signs.  

The silver lining in this case  they have to fix the gas gauge when they fix the fuel pump.  So, when I get the Jimmy back, I'll know for the first time in about two or three years just how much gas there is in the tank.  

Today Bill is driving the big Jimmy pickup with its new ball joints to Bonners Ferry.  And, while he's there, he'll be stopping by Boundary Tractor and asking Cal how much it costs to replace a broken drive line on an ancient brush hog.  

ACHOO!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

When Rebecca was in college, her car died in the middle of the street. A passing fire truck stopped, the firemen jumped out and pushed her car to the side of the road. She was a bit embarrassed to have all those hunks have to push her car, but also grateful.
Janet

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