Saturday, July 12, 2008

A near-death experience

First of all, let me say... I know no moderation. Seriously, with me there's no moderation. Its all or nothing, baby!

This is true in many aspects of my life. And recently very true about Blogging. I'd said that I was gonna "cut back" to just one or two days a week. HA! Yeah, we've all seen how that's turned out. And to make matters worse, I can now check email on my cell phone, so I don't even get on the internet for that anymore.

My sister and I had a girls' day Sunday with our best friend growing up, Janelle. We were talking about Facebook, which my sister had talked me into joining and I absolutely hate. Seriously, what's the point? Why leave a message on their 'wall' when you can just email?!?! ANYWAY... Janelle said that Facebook has become part of her morning routine.

And I've decided that I'm gonna do that too. Erica's old enough now that she can eat breakfast alone while I go downstairs to Blog.

AND NOW, TO MY POST TITLE...

Okay, so I'm a bit melodramatic. Yup, a drama queen. It was not a near death experience. But still, a very scary situation. Here we go...

Erica and I were driving Wednesday night to my parents' house. I was driving back roads, though they weren't too backroad-ish that I had to drive slow. I was going rather fast, with my cruise control on. Thank God for cruise control. Anyway, I would break at big curves and then just hit the 'resume' button. Well, after one particularly curvy curve, I decided that I'd use the gas peddle to speed up b/c 'resume' would take too long. I go to push the gas peddle down...

MOTHER OF PEARL!!!
[That's my exclamatory phrase of choice]

My gas peddle is missing! I'm going insane. I've lost my mind. Check me into an institute. Something has to be wrong with ME that I'm imagining that there's no gas peddle. I'm moving my foot all around, trying to find it. I'm freaking out. [Though conscious enough to know to resume cruise control.] I start to doubt myself. Maybe the gas peddle is on the other side of the break? I move my foot over there. Nope, not there either.

Thankfully the cruise control is able to get me to a place that I consider safe to pull over. It's a long driveway into a construction site. I immediately whip out my cell phone and dial my Church. [Erica and I had left from there. Andrew had been there too but had a different car.] I was hoping, hoping, hoping that he was still there. I doubted he would be. Wow I was freaking out.

Pastor picks up. I ask: "Is Andrew still there." He's like "I dunno. Hmmm... Don't see him. Let me check the parking lot. His car is still out there." I practicly yell: "GO GET HIM! DON'T LET HIM LEAVE!" Pastor asks me if everythings okay. Now, at this point I still think I may be crazy. I'm not gonna tell him my gas peddle disappeared. So I just say: "GET HIM!"

While he's gone getting Andrew, I finally get out of the car to look at what's going on. I sigh relief: I'm not crazy. The gas peddle had broken. It was just laying there on the ground. I tried picking it back up, and it just fell down again.

What happened after that isn't significantly important, so I won't give the play-by-play. Andrew came to meet us. He was able to fix it by snapping it back onto the cord/wire thingy. He showed me how to fix it in case it happened again. [Yup, I was wearing a skirt. Thank goodness we were on back roads.] But I talked him into letting me take the other car since it was gonna be an hour drive.

Did I mention, THIS WAS OUR NEW CAR!!! Yup, our 2008 Ford Escape. Haven't even had it a full year. And the thing broke! Ugh.


I'm at Starbuck's now. Did you know, if you buy a giftcard and registar it online, you get lots of benefits LIKE getting free WiFi for 2 hours each time you visit!?!?! How awesome is that! So, though I came here to work on my book [which is coming along nicely], I'm using the internet. I'll do lots of blog stuff, catching up.

10 comments:

Latoya said...

Hi Becky,

I enjoyed reading this blog and I am so glad that you all were fine and everything worked out good.

Are you writing a children's book?

'liya said...

OMG the gas peddle missing (and on a new car - I'd sue or something!) that sounds scary, you handled it well!

Yay you're back to blogging :)

Anonymous said...

Hm, I thought Starbucks always had free Wifi?

Anyway, that is really scary-seriously...how the heck does a gas pedal just break like that?

Anonymous said...

OMG, how scary is that?! CRAZY. I'm glad you and Erica are both okay! Is that something that's still under warranty?

(and yes I still remember you, silly girl!)

Anonymous said...

OMG, how scary is that?! CRAZY. I'm glad you and Erica are both okay! Is that something that's still under warranty?

(and yes I still remember you, silly girl!)

Anonymous said...

Yikes, I feel as though I need a nap after that! You threw so much info at me. Is there gonna be a test?! :P

TOTALLY love "MOTHER OF PEARL!" You and your exclamations! Still, break out "Hallelujah... courtesy of Handel's Messiah" once in awhile. Don't retire that one just yet! :)

I've thought my pedal disappeared before too, but it just kind of lifted up... know what I mean? Anyway, funny story! :o)

Anonymous said...

That was a funny story! I mean scary for you but funny to read nonetheless :P

Debra Rogers said...

Wow - not to many have that story to tell! Glad you and Erica are safe!

Becky L said...

Latoya- Not kids book; Adult book

'liya- If something bad would have happened, like an accident or whatever, I may have sued.

silverneurotic- Hmmm. I thought it hadn't been free. I know when I registered my card online, I had to fill out a special "form" to get the free wi-fi

crazy working mom- Yeah, you remembered!!!

ria- DARN! I keep forgetting to call you. ... And I'm glad you like 'mother of pearl'

raj- yeah, its kinda funny. Though I'm constantly scared now when I drive it.

debbie- no, I reckon not many people have that story to tell, b/c I sure never heard it before

Corinne said...

That is so crazy. I would have panicked and thought that I must be going crazy too!! I loved your butterfly post. Sooo cool. I hope your back is doing better soon. I know back pain and it is so hard not being able to do anything because you are afraid to move.