We are now officially on Plan Z.

Please abandon all previous plans!

So, no Tuscaloosa for me. Why? My God, what a day. Hello, half-empty bottle of wine.

Jeff says to me last night, “I need you to take the truck in for some maintenance work before we drive out on Saturday morning.” Turns out the truck is driving oddly, so it’s off to have the tires rotated, and the wheels aligned and balanced.This requires two trips. The first place says, “Hey, your tire is out of round. It was under warranty, so we replaced it.” Take it to the second place, where they tell me, “Hey, your frame is far enough out of alignment that you need to take it to a body shop for repairs. Ask your spouse if he hit something and needs to confess…”

Take the truck home. We discuss repairs. All is cool. Realize that the laundry room is hot. The vent hose on the dryer is busted, but we’re out of time. We drive to the theatre to watch Monsters, Inc. (which is ADORABLE) with friends. Get in the truck to go home. Get stuck in traffic in the parking lot. Jeff starts getting grumpy, staring at the dashboard, revving the engine.

Suddenly he says, “Oh shit!” in that tone of voice that indicates one of two things: impending pregnancy or disaster. At that moment, the “Check Gauges” light comes on and the warning bells start dinging. Engine’s overheating, and we’re not even out of the bloody parking lot.

We pull over. We have a slow coolant leak; the cooling system is bone-dry. We call Kat/Sean/Geof, who are amused at our predicament and go buy us a couple gallons each of coolant and filtered water. We wait for the engine to cool, refill the cooling system, and carefully drive home.

Get home, and we decide to fix the fixable stuff. The dryer’s working again.

So tomorrow, I’ll be shuffling the truck to the shop. Jeff’s going to take my car (the ‘94 Sundance that’s getting replaced next year and never goes on road trips) to Tuscaloosa so he can see his friends. I hate that I’m not going—Kara is going to kick me for missing this—but by staying here, I can get the truck in the shop tomorrow and make Jeff’s life a little easier next week.

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