faith4jesus247
I'm in a ranting mood today, and I haven't posted in a while...so I guess a few posts in one day won't hurt!

My car is paid off, which is an amazing feeling! Having $250 extra a month to apply to other bills (such as my heart-stopping $295 electric bill this month) is a wonderful thing. That being said...my car has issues. It's as though the car is taunting me with what I thought would be extra money each month. The excitement of having more financial freedom is now burdened with the question "How much is that going to be?" when talking to a mechanic about the most recent noise in my engine. Thankfully, my wonderful husband knows a bit about cars, and has been able to take care of the things that have come up recently, though the parts we have to purchase have no mercy on our wallets. What we were hoping (and told) would be a temporary fix to my most recent problem...landed me stranded on the side of the road last night in the dark and cold rain.

Driving home from babysitting last night, I was eager to get home and watch psycho Michelle with Brad Womack (yay for Monday night TV!). I looked down and saw my car thermometer (for lack of proper car part vocabulary) jump to the red zone. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road and turned the car off. I kept the car off until the needle got below the mid-way point, and then started it back up. I was appoximately 10 miles from home, and knew it was going to take me at least 3 times as long getting home at this point (good thing I taped it! :) ). I got about a mile further, when the needle was back in the red zone. I pulled over again, put my hazard lights on, and waited. The only way I could watch the needle go down, however, was to leave the car's battery running. 2 minutes later, the dashboard lights began flickering in and out...which is when I began to get nervous. I turned the key to start the engine and got a "tick-tick-tick" in response. Okay, now I'm going to panic.

I had left the cell phone at home with Chris, so that he could figure out his work situation for the week. Now I'm stranded on the side of the road with a car that now won't start. I couldn't have gotten stranded near an exit or even remotely close to a street lamp. Nooo...I was in the pitch black with woods around me. Awesome. I'll probably look over and see a dead body in the overgrown weeds. But I have no choice. I have to get out of my car and flag down somebody to let me use their phone. This is pretty much where I began flipping out. Waving my arms at oncoming lights with no vision of who sits behind the wheel was terrifying. At 10pm at night. In the rain. And every car that sped by me without stopping only made it worse. After about 7 cars had gone by, I started to cry and pray. I was tempted to sit in my car with the doors locked and wait until Chris realized something was wrong and came looking for me. While I may freeze for a few hours, it seemed much more appealing than trying to get help from a stranger in the dark. But I kept flailing my arms like a lunatic to every car that passed, hoping that someone would realize I wasn't just doing this for fun.

Ironically, a girl named Amber finally stopped to help me. She let me use her phone, gave me a bottle of water, and asked if I had any kids in the car. I was able to call Chris and tell him where I was. She made me feel better by telling me she knows how it feels to be a woman stranded on the side of the road. I thanked her over and over and let her go. Then I jumped back in the car, locked the doors, and waited. Thankfully, I had a blanket in the backseat to give me a bit of warmth. Chris and dad showed up shortly after to save the day! I was afraid we were going to have to leave the car by the side of the road overnight, but they were able to jump the car and put enough water in it to get it back to the house. Yay!

I suppose now is a good time to go get that other part I didn't want to pay for last week...
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