If it could have gone wrong, it did…

Remember how I was all easy-breezy on Friday and I went on about what a great day off I was going to have?  Yeah…that was a big jinx.  Because Friday was awful.  Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did and I’ve never been happier for a day to end.  Let me tell you what happened…

There was a plan…we were going to go shopping for a new car.  You know the idiot from the other day…the one who wouldn’t call me back?  Well…someone else from the dealership called me back and we negotiated a very nice price over the phone.  J and I discussed it and we decided to take a drive out to Long Island. 

First, I took our car to the mechanic.  The “check engine” light had been on and I wanted to get it fixed so that we wouldn’t have any issues with trading in the car.  I ended up paying $100 and waiting over an hour for them to fix a part that costs $4.50 at AutoZone and would have taken J ten minutes to replace. 

Then, back at home, J decided that before we left he wanted to tighten down the bolts on the alternator…just in case.  In case of what I do not know…and I suggested that maybe he just leave it alone.  But J knows everything so he went ahead and tightened the bolt…and snapped that sucker right in half.  I’m not even kidding.  It’s a big deal, you see, because it’s kind of important that the bolt be in once piece…and it’s not the sort of thing you can buy at any store.   I suggested crazy gluing it back together, but that look only got me a side-eye from J, so I guess it wouldn’t have worked.

We did find a store that had alternator bolts…on the complete opposite end of the city.  It took us forever to get there through traffic…and it turns out that the bolts they sold didn’t fit in our car anyway.  We spent about an hour driving back and forth for these bolts…and in the end, we ended up at the Home Depot five minutes from our house.  Luckily, J was able to get a bolt that worked and he fixed the car and we went on our way.  We were two and a half hours late…but at least we had finally left. 

After driving 45 minutes out to the dealership, we realized as we were pulling into the parking lot that we’d forgotten to bring the title for our car with us.  You can’t trade a car in without the title.  DUH.  This was not our finest moment and by this point I was so incredibly frustrated that all I wanted to do was go home. 

Instead, we sat down and started negotiating.  We had come to an agreement on the price of the car over the phone, but we still needed to agree on a price for our trade in.  This was going to be an issue…because J loved his car and placed a much higher value on it than the dealership.  When they made offer of $1,000 I knew we were in trouble.  It took 45 minutes of negotiating…but we finally reached a price of $1,700.  J was ok with that price and paperwork was started, insurance cards were faxed…it looked like we were good to go.

Until the saleswoman came back and told us that, in fact, they weren’t going to give us $1,700  for the trade.  And that, my friends, is when we walked out the door.  We wasted an entire day off from work and we were leaving in the same car.  I was not a happy camper.  I don’t like my time to be wasted and I don’t like shady dealings…and car dealers really are the worst (sorry, Dad, but it’s true).  However, by the time we got home, the woman had called back with a better offer and, after some further negotiating, we reached a deal and we agreed that we’d pick the car up on Sunday.  Things were looking up!

Around 7PM I drove J over to a dinner he had to go to and I went home…and discovered that I didn’t have house keys.  Great.  I called J to see if I could come and get his keys, but since I drove him he didn’t take his keys.  I could have gone in through the back gate and then through the garage, but the back gate has a combination lock on it…and, of course, I couldn’t remember the combination.  In the end I had to go around to the other side of the house, climb past the air conditioning compressor and over the fence, jump down from a 4 foot high retaining wall, weave past the pallets of pavers stacked there and, finally, I was able to get in through the garage.  Oh…and I had to download a flashlight app to my cell phone (thanks for that idea Robyn!!!) so I could see and make sure I didn’t break my leg. 

When I got into the house, I found that the dog had gotten so nervous at all the commotion outside that she’d pooped on the floor.  At that point I just called it a night.

Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong that day did.  I was starting to believe that the universe was trying to send us a message.  Luckily, the rest of the weekend was a lot better and ended with a new purchase…

Maybe I should have turned the phone sideways so I didn't cut the front and back off the car!

 I’m hoping our luck has now changed for the better and that the disasters of Friday were just a fluke.  How was everyone else’s weekend???