One of those mornings…

The front doors on all of the apartments in our block are a bit ridiculous. You have to either turn the handle all the way and shut them unlocked, or slam them as hard as you can. Most people choose the latter option. Which is fine.

Except at 5:45 AM!!!!!! Sigh. Seriously people, turn the handle, shut door, then use keys to lock. It’s not that hard. Slamming it shut is so loud. It woke me up. It woke Daniel up. Daniel then woke Hannah up.

I went in their room and Hannah looked like she’d just run a marathon, stuck her finger in a light socket, fell asleep, and then was startled to only half awake.

She was so sleepy. And whingey. Sigh.

I cuddle Hannah, but Daniel wants some attention too and attempts to climb up my leg.

“Ouch Daniel! No biting!”

He bit my leg. Sigh. He’s a biter. Yesterday he bit the back of my leg. My upper leg. Have you ever been bit there? It HURTS. Cheeky boy.

We all ate breakfast, put away the kids clothes that I folded last night (in addition to the other 9 loads I also folded. Sigh.), got Hannah’s lunch ready, clothes on, etc.

Today is Thursday. Hannah’s daycare day. My one and only day to work. And by work, I mean write.

I buckled them in their car seats. Daniel is facing forward now. He’s such a big boy!

I put the key in the ignition. Turn it.

I hear clunky noises and all the lights on the dashboard are going mental.

The car won’t start. Sigh.

The smash repairers had the car for FOUR WEEKS and it doesn’t even last 2 weeks? I’m not gonna lie, I was cranky.

This took 4 weeks to repair

Related post: The Wrecked Wrexy

“I’ll have to call someone Hannah, the car won’t start. We might have to walk to daycare.” But I didn’t think we’d have time. It was almost 9 and they go to play session on Thursday’s. They leave at 9:30. And daycare is 2.5kms away. I can walk it in 30 minutes, I have before, but I would need to get the pram out of the boot, put warmer clothes on Daniel, and change my shoes. Not enough time.

Luckily Mel (Hannah’s Family Daycare provider. I would love to provide a link to her website, but I don’t want random internet people who may or may not be dodgy to know where my child goes to daycare) said she’d pick Hannah up on the way to Playsession. Awesome.

I left a message with the NRMA repair centre, who told me when I picked up the car to let them know if there were any problems. Did I mention they never bother to call back, and never bother to pick up the phone? Great, this had to happen today. Sigh. Better than tomorrow I suppose.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to go to a film studio so I can be recorded talking about some stuff for some things. I don’t know I’m allowed to talk about it yet, so I won’t give you any details.

Freaking out a little, I messaged the studio with a long-winded explanation about the stupid smash repairer not fixing the car properly, and the likely hood that I won’t have a car tomorrow to drive to the studio.  Just wanted to give them the heads up. I’m not one of those last minute people if I can help it.

There was no hope of the NRMA calling back. So I called Subaru Assist. Which just so happened to come free until 2013 with purchase of the car. Sweet.

When we first got the car. Yes, I was molesting the car for the photo. No, it wasn’t pre-owned, contrary to the wall behind me.

I explained that the car was recently in an accident only just got back from being repaired, and I don’t know what they did, but now the car won’t start.

“What does it do when you try to start it?” They asked me.

“It makes a lot of noise and the lights on the dashboard go crazy.”

“Sounds like a flat battery. It’s still under warranty, so it won’t cost you anything to replace.” Nice. Just what I like to hear. Especially since our every day bank account is looking very sad after paying the car insurance excess, going to Costco, and ordering too many board games on the internet.

Hmmm…but what caused the flat battery? The stupid smash repairer must have buggered up some wiring or something. It’s all too coincidental.

Subaru assist arrived within the hour. They replaced the battery with a heavy duty one that wouldn’t need any maintenance or water added to it.

Wait. What? I was supposed to be maintaining and adding water to my battery? You have to actually do stuff to your car battery? Hmm… Oops….

“So what caused the battery to die?” I asked them.

“Could be a light was left on. Could be age. Batteries just run out after a while, it’s normal. Nothing is wrong with the connections or anything.”

They were in and out of there in less than 10 minutes.

I drove the car back in the garage (they rolled it out) and had a lightbulb moment.

I’m constantly telling Hannah not to turn on the dome light over the back seat when she climbs in the car and into her car seat. She must have slipped one past me.

I looked up, and there it was. The source of the flat battery. That darn light was in the on position. And stupid me didn’t even notice. Probably because the lights always come on when you open the door. They dim and then turn off in a little while, so I just didn’t notice that this particular light was going full blare. Sigh.

I guess it’s a good thing the NRMA doesn’t ever call back. I’d have to explain to them that I’m the stupid one. Not the smash repairer.

Yes, I am awesome. Sigh.

Oh, and then I had to message the film studio. “so…it was just the car battery…car is fine, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I’m sure they think very highly of me now. Oh well, we all know that I’m awkward.

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The wrecked wrexy

“The car is really dirty, we should wash it next week.” Aaron told me as we drove down our driveway.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

To the right, a big blue Commodore, blocked the view. Plus the other 2 cars parked behind it. And the crest of a hill. That doesn’t help much either. To the left, a little Barina was parked right next to the driveway. Aaron looked to the right before we got to the foot path. Checked to see if anyone was coming. You have to look under the cars because you can’t see through them/over them/beyond them. Unless you stick the entire hood of your car onto the road. But then you’d be blocking a whole lane of traffic.

It’s ok when there is no one parked to the left of the drive way. Then you can turn onto the side of the road and look from there without being collected as you pull out.

No one was coming. He checked again, then hit the gas. Gotta be quick since you can’t see past the hill even if there are no cars parked there at all.

“AARON!!!!!” I screamed. Or something to that effect. I can’t actually remember what I said. Just that it was said whilst screaming. He didn’t see it until I screamed.

A flash of red was right next to us. The car jolted and made hideous screeching and crunching metal-on-metal noises.

I could see the blue car that was parked to the left of our driveway. My side of the car was headed straight for it.

The blue car we side swiped

More screeching and crunching filled the air. People came running out of their apartments to see what was going on.

I was shaking like a leaf. Hannah was laughing. Apparently this ride was the super fun.

Somehow we managed to pull over to the side of the road just behind the red car we collided with.

The red car we collided with

I sat there, shaking in my seat and practically hyperventilating. I don’t know why. The accident didn’t even jolt us about. We weren’t hurt in the slightest. Just shocked. Or something like that.

Our poor WRX

I stayed in the car for a while. Watched Aaron jump out and enquire as to the wellbeing of the man and woman in the other car. They were fine too. I sat there. Watching. Shaking. Regrouping.

We only just paid off the car. Did I mention that? Yeah. Just a few weeks ago. It’s finally ours. We finally own one thing that costs more than a thousand dollars. Sigh.

The people in the other car were very nice about it. They said their driveway is really hard to see from too. They completely understood. They weren’t even annoyed. Just relieved that everyone was ok.

They were turning right from a street across the road and to the right of us. They weren’t even visible through the cars. No wonder Aaron didn’t see them. By the time he was on the road it was too late. Plus he was looking left anyway, to make sure he didn’t hit the blue car when turning.

We were on our way to church. Today was the church’s birthday. They were having pony rides, face painting, a jumping castle, and a petting zoo. Hannah was so excited.

But now we have no car. We had to speak to the insurance company, get a tow truck, organise a rental car for the next couple of weeks.

I got the kids out of the car and took them inside. Hannah wanted to get her tool box out so she could go fix the car. I told her she couldn’t because there were lots of sharp pieces of glass. She wanted to do some pasting instead.

“What do you want to paste?” I asked her. She gets me to cut things out and then she pastes them onto a sheet of paper.

“Cars.” She told me “Three cars.”

And this is what she made:

How sad is that?

“Daddy doesn’t look where he is going.” She told us. “Daddy crashed the car. But mommy looks where she is going.”

My little Hannah tiger

Eventually we did get to church. Hannah got to ride a pony, with her face painted like a

Hannah having a pony ride

tiger. And then we went home. On the bus.

 

And now, as I write this, I can hear people running over little bits of our car as they drive past. Aaron swept up what he could, but it was kinda hard to do in traffic breaks. Sigh.

Daniel watching the petting zoo

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson