Murphy's Law

So Kelly left on a deployment yesterday right after lunch. (He's only gone for a month, so don't pity me too much... my friend around the corner has a husband gone for over a year.) Anyone who knows our past experiences knows that something MUST go wrong as soon as he leaves. Yesterday didn't disappoint.

After lunch we had nap time, and then I needed to take the kids to the grocery store. So I loaded up the baby and the two biggest girls. (Katarina was still sleeping, so I left her for last.) I went to start the car and it was dead. I mean, completely dead. No lights on the dashboard, no nothing.

O.k.

So I call Sylvia Kent, a few doors down from me, to give me a jump. I tell her I'll just roll my car out of the garage and down the driveway if she'll just drive over. Sure. So I jump in the car, turn on the key, push the brake and try to shift out of park. Not happening. Our car has one of those safety features where it won't shift out of park unless I do all those things I just listed. Well, apparently, when the car is COMPLETELY DEAD it doesn't register the fact that I am following directions like a good little girl. It refuses to move out of park. There has got to be a way to override this stupid thing, so I pull out the owner's manual.

Meanwhile, my very sweet friend has arrived and is watching me thumb through the stupid manual at a snail's pace, trying to locate a solution to my problem. After an eternity, I finally find the instructions. I have to use a screwdriver to pry off a piece of plastic and push a button underneath that will allow me to shift from park. Of course. Why didn't I think of that before?

O.k., I can finally push my car down the driveway to be beside hers. Ummm... before you push a car out, you should check if your open driver's side door is going to run into anything. Like, say, a tricycle or a Mantis rototiller. (Kelly, if you're reading this, don't worry. Neither of them was permanently damaged.) (Oh yeah... and neither was the car.)

I finally was able to drive out of my driveway about a half hour after initially trying to start my car. I guess the good news is that Katarina got an extra half hour of a nap. Well, actually the really good news is that my kids were all angels in the store. Really. I couldn't have asked for better behaved kids. So I guess that was my blessing after the trial.