The Week of Broken Things
Normally, I make a distinct effort to be a thankful person. I have a lot of good in my life, and I do my best to focus on that. The past few weeks, though, have made my thankful attitude difficult (if not impossible) to maintain.
It all started when I noticed my "check engine" light brightly displayed on my dashboard. Around the 3rd week of June, I brought it into the shop and they informed me that my Catalytic Converter had gone bad and needed to be replaced. $1,007.
The next week, my husband and I were watching TV and it started storming. We both went upstairs to get ready for work and when we came back down, the TV was off. We didn't think much of it (in fact, I don't think we even realized that it had turned itself off at the time) until that evening, after work, when we attempted to turn on the TV and it wouldn't cooperate. After a few phone calls to family members & many Google searches, we figured out that there was likely a power surge due to the lightening and it busted. I should say that we are NOT so materialistic that we cannot live without our 40" HDTV, but we bought it for ourselves one year ago with our wedding money and the timing was unfortunate.
Two days after the TV fiasco, I was on my way home from work (and about four miles from home but still on the highway) when my car made a very distinct jerking motion and then started shaking before the "check engine" light started flashing. I was close to the exit, and even though I was unable to accelerate my car, I made it to a parking lot just off of the highway (in tears, of course) and called Sean to come pick me up, AAA to two my car, and the car place to find out what the heck was happening. They said my engine was misfiring for some reason. They called us the next day to tell us that the ignition coils had swollen and cracked (a problem that has occurred in this make/model before) and as a result the PCM (the computer that essentially operates the car) was completely broken and needed to be replaced. The damage? Almost $2,000 more dollars. And since we both needed to get to work and our jobs are nowhere NEAR each other, we had to rent a car for the five days that they needed to order & install the parts. Rental cars, it turns out, aren't too cheap!
Finally, I went to lunch with a co-worker, and after lunch we drove through the bank drive-thru. She asked if I had a pen she could borrow, so I pulled my pen out of my purse and it was COMPLETELY broken... falling apart and unusable. Normally, this wouldn't phase me, but it turned out to be the cherry on top of my week of broken things.
When I drove into the parking lot of my apartment that night, I was in an unusually bad mood. I was stressing about my terrible week(s) when I noticed a woman walking her dog. She bent down to pick up her dog's poop (sorry - there isn't a nicer way to say this!) when she kind of spazzed and dropped the plastic bag so that it was hanging from the dog's tail by the handle. This, by itself, was funny to witness - but then the dog noticed that the bag was there and started ferociously wagging its tail until the poop fell out of the bag! As gross as this may have been, it was also hysterical to watch and made me laugh out loud!
I was reminded that there is always something to laugh about, even when life seems pretty gloomy, and that timing really is everything; I could have easily missed that scenario and been upset the rest of the night, but instead, I had a good laugh and my entire mood changed. If you ask me (or my husband), that's something to be thankful for!
It all started when I noticed my "check engine" light brightly displayed on my dashboard. Around the 3rd week of June, I brought it into the shop and they informed me that my Catalytic Converter had gone bad and needed to be replaced. $1,007.
The next week, my husband and I were watching TV and it started storming. We both went upstairs to get ready for work and when we came back down, the TV was off. We didn't think much of it (in fact, I don't think we even realized that it had turned itself off at the time) until that evening, after work, when we attempted to turn on the TV and it wouldn't cooperate. After a few phone calls to family members & many Google searches, we figured out that there was likely a power surge due to the lightening and it busted. I should say that we are NOT so materialistic that we cannot live without our 40" HDTV, but we bought it for ourselves one year ago with our wedding money and the timing was unfortunate.
Two days after the TV fiasco, I was on my way home from work (and about four miles from home but still on the highway) when my car made a very distinct jerking motion and then started shaking before the "check engine" light started flashing. I was close to the exit, and even though I was unable to accelerate my car, I made it to a parking lot just off of the highway (in tears, of course) and called Sean to come pick me up, AAA to two my car, and the car place to find out what the heck was happening. They said my engine was misfiring for some reason. They called us the next day to tell us that the ignition coils had swollen and cracked (a problem that has occurred in this make/model before) and as a result the PCM (the computer that essentially operates the car) was completely broken and needed to be replaced. The damage? Almost $2,000 more dollars. And since we both needed to get to work and our jobs are nowhere NEAR each other, we had to rent a car for the five days that they needed to order & install the parts. Rental cars, it turns out, aren't too cheap!
Finally, I went to lunch with a co-worker, and after lunch we drove through the bank drive-thru. She asked if I had a pen she could borrow, so I pulled my pen out of my purse and it was COMPLETELY broken... falling apart and unusable. Normally, this wouldn't phase me, but it turned out to be the cherry on top of my week of broken things.
When I drove into the parking lot of my apartment that night, I was in an unusually bad mood. I was stressing about my terrible week(s) when I noticed a woman walking her dog. She bent down to pick up her dog's poop (sorry - there isn't a nicer way to say this!) when she kind of spazzed and dropped the plastic bag so that it was hanging from the dog's tail by the handle. This, by itself, was funny to witness - but then the dog noticed that the bag was there and started ferociously wagging its tail until the poop fell out of the bag! As gross as this may have been, it was also hysterical to watch and made me laugh out loud!
I was reminded that there is always something to laugh about, even when life seems pretty gloomy, and that timing really is everything; I could have easily missed that scenario and been upset the rest of the night, but instead, I had a good laugh and my entire mood changed. If you ask me (or my husband), that's something to be thankful for!
Hopefully this week will be better!
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