It rained today! Not just a sprinkling that left streaks in the dust on my van, but a real downpour that made Charly nervous and Max bark and Frankie want to come in the house. They had forgotten what this strange stuff was! It came down so hard that the tail-end of my van was washed clean!
...which caused a problem later when Tom and Daniel were trying to find it near the volunteer fire department, where I'd managed to wrestle it into a parking space after one of the important belts slipped off (after getting wet...from the rain) and the power steering went out (and the battery light came on and the temperature shot up to HIGH!) Kendall and I had made it close enough to work that Boss Kay was able to zip out to retrieve us before heading out to her meeting.
Tom had planned to make the rounds at dealerships after work - we wanted to take advantage of the "Cash for Clunkers" government program...trade in our old black truck (the REAL guzzler - a diesel truck - has been sitting for over a year uninsured because we didn't want to drive it, so it didn't qualify!)...and get some little FULLY WARRANTIED high-gas-mileage car for me to drive. I'm hard on cars and he's tired of having to constantly fix them.
Well, instead he had to leave work early, rescue me and Kendall from work and fix my van, and in the meantime, we hear that the program has been suspended. Dealerships were FLOODED with clunkers, drowning in paperwork, and frozen out of the government's "clunker" website. No one had any idea how much money had already been handed out or if the dealerships would get reimbursed. I feel like a little kid who was promised a trip to the toy store to get whatever she wanted, and now the trip has been cancelled, the promise snatched away. (Not that I would be getting just "anything" I wanted - there is a HUGE difference in my 'druthers' and my 'whatcha gets', I do believe!)
So in a way, the belt coming off was a good thing...the van will finally get fixed and inspected (fingers-crossed), plus Tom didn't have to waste a lot of time looking at brand-new shiny cars and talking to dealers only to find the program was put on hold...well, I'm not sure he thinks that's a good trade, but I do! If he fixes the squealing belt once and for all, I'll be fine driving that old red van a while longer. It's paid for and has air-conditioning - what more could I ask for?
