$1.75, But It's Not My Fault!

Ok, it is my fault. I agreed to pay myself a quarter every time I say a bad word, but at the time I didn't know that I would soon be dealing with the effects of winter and my own stupidity. *Sigh* My minivan is sitting in the middle of a parking lot right now, waiting to be towed to the car dealer.

At 10am this morning, the snow started coming down and I thought I could get up to school in time to collect the dinner ticket money before it got really bad outside. I loaded Chloe into the van and away we went - until I wrecked the van going a wimpy 20 miles an hour. Just kidding - I didn't "wreck" it, but I slid making a turn and we nailed a curb. The wheel and rim were dented, but it seemed fine, so I continued on to school.

Ten minutes later, I was leaving school and noticed that alignment was way off and there was a rubbing (I'd say grinding - but it wasn't that loud) noise coming from that area of the car. I pulled over into a parking lot and called my husband. (I am so in the dog house right now!) Remembering that the warranty included road side assistance, I called GM and put in a request for help. I probably could have driven on it, but with my luck the wheel would have fallen off and we'd be *#$@ a creek. Or in a ditch.

So, I'm sitting in a parking lot with an 18 month old in the car who is crying and unhappy while I'm trying to figure all of this out. I have no car seat to transfer over to another car because she is in the car's child integrated seat, so requesting a loaner is not an option. (We don't have coverage for that anyway.) I have no diaper bag - because I'm an idiot - so all I have to bribe her with is my iPod. This makes her happy for awhile and we sit and wait for my friend, Teri, to grab a car seat and diaper bag from my house and pick our butts up. The tow truck wait is 3 hours and I am so not sitting there for that long with a toddler who hasn't had lunch or a nap yet.

We're home now and I'm really wishing that school would dismiss early because it's getting considerably worse outside. I should receive a phone call when the tow truck gets there. Hopefully the van will still be there since I had to leave a key inside. I'm really not looking forward to getting the bill for this.