The No Good, Very Bad Day

Wade and I finally had a weekend at home (no out of town weddings). We both agreed today would be a great day to get lots of chores done from our lists. Wade started his day with a trip to Home Depot. I started mine with painting. Wade had been back about two hours when I ran out of ceiling paint. I was all nasty in my paint clothes so I asked Wade to go to Home Depot again, but he said he would rather not. I grabbed only my wallet and keys (Wade and I both have keys to each other’s cars on our key rings.) and decided to take his car (because it would be less tragic if some random paint transferred from me to his car than if paint got on my car – Wade does not agree with this). When I opened his unlocked car door, the alarm went off. I was already annoyed that I had to make a trip to Depot so I ran in and grabbed his keys (which have a clicker) and turned off the alarm. (You should realize at this point that I have both our keys and no cell phone.)

I got about a mile from our house when Wade’s car died on the side of the road. Wade’s gas gauge is broken so I figured it had probably run out of gas. I walked a short way to a bike shop and called Wade. Because we don’t have a real phone line, Wade is often not near enough to his cell phone to hear it ring. Thank goodness he answered. I asked him if it was possible his car had run out of gas, and he said probably so. I asked him to bring me gas and we hung up. I walked back to the car and stood there about five minutes. Then I happened to look at my hands and realized I had both sets of car keys, which means Wade had no way to bring me gas. I started running home. Then I looked up and saw Wade pass me in my car or I thought it was Wade. I was very confused but decided to walk back to Wade’s car and wait. While waiting, I did have one taxi and a nice couple across the street offer assistance. Wade arrived with the gas – turns out he had found a valet key (which I didn’t even know we had). I drove to the gas station, filled up his car, and then went to Home Depot.

That alone would be a funny story, but then it turns tragic. Wade won a video iPod from a raffle at work about two weeks ago. He has had a lot of fun playing with it – it is evidently much better than his iPod Mini. I had noticed when I was in his car that it was under the driver’s seat, but I would just push it further back when it slid out. Sunday morning we were getting ready to drive to Atlanta for a wedding when Wade asked me if I had moved his iPod. I told him I had seen it in his floorboard. Evidently when he walked outside, the cord was dangling out of the car door. Our best guess is when I got out of the car at home, it fell out without my knowing. We have a lot of questionable people walk by our house and we think one of them probably took the iPod.

To give Wade lots of credit, his only response to all of this was “Next time I will buy paint when you ask”. However, I have felt terrible ever since.