I went and worked on the crib again this weekend. It wasn't the most productive weekend in terms of making sawdust and visible progress, but we did get a lot of "figuring" done, and made some final tweaks to the actual assembly. The crib building wasn't the most interesting part of my weekend however, the ride home was. Now for the lessons of the weekend.
1. Don't keep your cell phone near water. Your mother sat out by her pool on Sunday enjoying the warm weather and trying to get you a tan through all that bothersome skin. At some point she stood up and sent her phone into the pool. For the record, she did the right thing in scooping it out of the water and putting it in rice. The rice helps pull the water out of the phone. It's like a Democrat near taxpayer money. It keeps pulling until the water is out, but unlike a Democrat it actually helps make the system work better.
2. Charge your cell phone. Cell phones are great when things go wrong... unless they don't have enough battery power to make a phone call.
3. Memorize important people's phone numbers. You never know when you will need to call a your father-in-law for a ride, or need to call a neighbor to go speak to your wife for you.
4. Pull over when your car gets hot. If you keep driving your call will sieze up and you won't be driving anymore.
So with all of these important lessons in mind I will recap my drive home on Sunday. For the record some of these lessons for you have come to me by way of hardship. Sunday evening I left Dad's shop with the knowledge that my cell phone was kinda low on battery. I turned off my ringer during the afternoon so that I would have battery left for the ride home, and found out that I had missed several calls during that time on the way home. I saw I had missed a call from your mom, Grandma Kelly, and Grandpa Curt as well as a few texts. At this point I was certain that your mother was in labor and that you were en route. I called Ash, no answer. I listened to a voice mail that was crackly and thought I heard something about your mother vacuming her phone. I was perplexed to say the least. Eventually I got ahold of of Curt who told me about your mom's attempt to teach her cell phone how to swim. It doesn't matter how long you were a life gaurd, cells don't swim. I told Curt I had better let him go, because my phone was about dead.
As I drove through the metropolitan area of Dumont IA, I realized that my air conditioner wasn't working. Then I realized that my power steering wasn't working. I thought to myself, "Self, you should pull over." Then my high coolant warning came on. I pulled over. At this point I was a mile or so out of Dumont with a dead car. I, being a manly man, popped the hood to see what was wrong. I am not much of a car guy, but even I could tell I was screwed. The belt hanging at random was a good clue, and the trail of liquid behind my car was a solid confirmation. I wasn't going anywhere. So I called Curt again to see if he could give me a ride. Or, at least I tried. My phone then told me that I was a dumbass, and my battery was too low to make a call. So I spotted the nearest farm house and started walking.
Thankfully I live in Iowa, and not New Jersey. In Iowa you can walk up to a farm house, ask to use the phone, and be invited in almost like family. In New Jersey if you show up to a home unannounced you will be shot. (At least according to the stereotypes that I believe in.) They invited me in, let me make a long distance call, offered me a water, and then let me sit down and wait since it was hot outside. Thank you random farm couple, the next option was a long ways away.
Curt came and picked me up, thank you Curt, and took me to his brother's home. His brother, Scott, is the mayor as well as mechanic in town. Small towns are cool like that. He went and towed my car, and fixed it the next day. Thanks Scott!
At this point, I have a dead phone in my pocket, a dead car on the side of Highway 3, and a wife with a failed swimming lesson. I called my neighbor, Shortway, to ask him to go tell my pregnant wife that I was going to be a while, but I was with her dad so everything would be OK. Thankfully he moved to Iowa from New Jersey several years ago, otherwise he would have delivered that message and then shot her. So thank you Chris, not only for delivering my distress message, but also for not shooting my wife.
Eventually I had supper with the in-laws, got a ride home from my brother-in-law, and made it home to my gunshot free wife. The next day my wife drove me to Allison to pick up my car.
And we all lived happily ever after.
The End.
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