Freaky Friday

The day's plan was simple enough: at 10:30 AM, leave work, get JK from daycare, pack the family into the car, go home and switch out school gear (laptops, marking, books, backpacks) to town gear (library book returns, cooler for groceries, grocery bags, Salvation Army box, water jug) and leave for town to make a 12:50 PM dentist appointment for the whole family. The execution of the plan: not so great. Start the car. Ummmm, the car won't start. Try again. Starter turns over, but that's it. Take anxious daughter back inside school, tell my spouse, try to get help from fellow staff members and colleagues. No solutions. My spouse calls the dentist to let him know we might be late. No problem, she's told. Try car again. Still nothing. Helpful staff suggest gas anti-freeze, a new fuel pump or call a tow-truck. Try car again. Nothing. My spouse calls CAA. Guess what? Our membership doesn't cover having a tow-truck drive 100 kilometres (one way) to come and get our car (the cost to have this done was quite expensive). Can we upgrade our account? Yes, but it will take 48 hours. Can we wait two days for a tow-truck? I suppose. My spouse calls the dentist, cancels appointment. No problem, again says the dentist (in TO we would have had to pay for cancelling our appointment - love small town attitudes. Of course your car won't start. It's freaking -20 degrees with another -10 degree windchill with blowing, drifting snow. Totally understandable). Go outside once more. Try car. It starts. Finally! Hurry back inside, tell spouse. EK cancels tow-truck, calls dentist to say we are coming in(it's now 11:30 AM, can we make it?). Dentist says to not bother, appointment times have already been filled. How about in two weeks (another Pay Day Friday)? No problem. There was no point in going back to our classrooms to teach (there were 20 minutes left in the school day), so we headed out to town anyway to do our grocery, library and banking errands (FK opened her own bank account today).

So, lost my two hour "medical" time, looked a little foolish in front of other staff members (though they were very gracious, even offering their own vehicles), and to top it all off, got a parking ticket in town. Sigh.

Oddly enough, no panic, no angry frustration, no freaking out. In fact, calm, cool and collected. That was me yesterday morning. I would not have reacted the same way five years ago. Is it possible that I have matured over the past few years?

The evening was much better. After the Sprouts were tucked away in bed, my spouse and I curled up on the couch and had a "Mentalist" and "Project Runway" viewing marathon. Got to love a long weekend so you can stay up late and sleep in the next day (or at the very least, stay in your jammies and type out blog posts).