Okay, so it's Thursday and I can't wait for my car to come home! Oh, I mean my husband. No, really, I mean my car. It's only been gone since Tuesday, but it seems like a lifetime.
Day one was okay. Kiki (my 14 yo) had an orthodontist appointment. I thought it would be a great time to experiment and use the city bus/trolley for the first time. But as the day approached, anxiety began to set in. What if I missed the bus? How would I get to the appointment on time then? What if it came too late, how long would we have to stand out in the cold waiting for it? What if what if what if? So by Tuesday morning I was on the phone with my mom, who graciously picked up on my probably not so subtle cry for help and offered to drive us. Kiki is on vacation this week and grandma was supposed to come spend the day with us one day anyway, so she said we could switch it to Tuesday. I gratefully accepted!
By day two I was feeling a little more adventurous and suggested Kiki and I walk to one of the stores nearby. We did this once before and and it sounds like no big deal. But the part of the small city where we live (a) has no sidewalks, and (b) has no crosswalk to get from one side of the narrow but busy business lined road. But it was a fairly nice day so I thought we would give it another shot, having learned a thing or two from the first time and developing a strategy of sorts for safer crossing. I hadn't accounted for the snowbanks, though, which seemed to take up even more walking space. But Kiki wore her rainboots and country bred girl that she is walked on top of the 4 foot frozen walls of snow most of the way.
Just as we got halfway through the store parking lot, it began to rain. Wouldn't you know? And I thought well maybe it's just a shower and will stop by the time we come out. We did a little shopping, and I price checked a few things that I had just gotten some new coupons for. Which of course made me crazy since I couldn't buy them and carry them to my house. Because well, I didn't have my car! This was starting to get serious. A girl can hardly be expected to amass great deals without a car to lug them home in.
When we came out of the store it was snowing. Hard. I remembered the bus and checked my cell phone for the time knowing that it would be coming by sometime before the top of the hour. We hurried to the bus stop and sure enough, the bus was due in 3 minutes. We waited in the snow and wind, and it was like all my worries and fears come to life. Would the bus come? Did we just miss it? Would we have to go back in the store for another hour for the next bus? Then out of the snow it emerged, our shiny vehicle of rescue - hallelujah! It was clean, comfortable, and not crowded at all - plus it was warm and dry. I felt a little silly because our stop was so close, but because we are at the end of the line and our stop on the other said, we stayed on as the bus looped around until we got there. And in that sort span of time the snow stopped and the sun came out. It wasn't a blizzard as we thought, just a silly little squall. We walked home from the bus laughing at ourselves for panicking. But in New England you just never know what is going to happen. It's never smart here to gamble on the weather. Especially when you don't have your car.
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