When your day doesn't go at ALL as planned....

1. If you are 35 minutes into your 45 minutes commute, your car will get a flat on a very narrow stretch of Highway 1; where you will have a lovely view of the pacific, which is precisely where your body will be flung should one of those eighty-mile-an-hour semi trucks swerve a bit off their mark.
2. Your cell phone will inexplicably refuse to charge, turn on, or pretend that it knows you.
3. Two police cars will pass you by without slowing, even though you are outside your vehicle holding your dead cell phone in your hand.
4. You will remember that you DO know how to change a tire!
5. You will look for your jack and not be able to find it. You will swear.
6. But then you will remember that neighbor guy from 5 or more years ago who changed his tire wrong and now is a paraplegic. You will decide to stop swearing and to not change your tire.
7. You realize that you will need AAA, but you can't call them, and you can't find your card anyway because it is, in fact, in your dh's wallet.
8. You will make a sign with your magic markers, which were put into the car for the purpose of your classes, which you will now be missing and you have no way to inform your classes (see #3). The sign will say "PHONE? TIRE?"
9. You will watch many many many BMWs, Range Rovers, and CalTrans vehicles all pass you. Nobody will stop to help, though some will gawk.
10. As the third cop car speeds past, you will notice a car go past you and turn around up ahead, come back, and pull up behind you in the unsafe narrow stretch of road.
11. This car will have just one person in it; a lone woman as yourself. A woman who noticed a woman on the side of the road, watched to see if the police car would stop, and then when it did not, decided to turn around.
12. This woman will give you her cell phone, which works! (this is an area of Hwy 1 with very little cell coverage)
13. You will call the person who can go tell your class that you are not dead, but will not be making it in time for the class.
14. Then call AAA, who will ask if you have sent your membership dues. As you rack your brain for the truthful answer, you will hear the words 'grace period' and say that YES! you will send that right away have sent that check!! You will explain to them that three cops have passed you and a very nice strange woman stopped to help and you are using her phone and may need to hug her. They will laugh and agree to send a truck!
15. You will hand the phone back to this woman named Sarah, apologize for making her late for work, and you will indeed hug her before going back to wait in your own car for the AAA guy.
16. Where, from your rearview mirror, you will notice that Sarah is on her phone and her car is not going anywhere. She will give you the 'arms up surrender pose'.
17. You will get out of your car and into her car which suddenly, will not start.
18. You will both peer under the hood for something wrong and then admit to each other that you have no idea what you are looking for.
19. You will exclaim about how it really is strange that in ten minutes her car went dead, and agree with her when she turns over the starter and it just clicks, that something IS wrong.
20. You will aplogize profusely for being responsible for making her late.
21. You will realize you have just met a new friend as you discuss your mountain lives in common, Hawaii, Costa Rica, and recent books read. The SAME BOOKS!
22. You will become deeply engrossed in conversation, when OOPS!!! You realize that you left your lights on in your own car and jump out of her car to turn them off, but
23. OOPS! The battery is dead.
24. You will laugh about how lame you are as your climb back into your new friend's broken down car.
25. She will agree. Nicely.
26. The AAA guy will show up and be Sarah's neighbor, driving back from dropping off Sarah's mom's car at the shop.
27. Everyone will laugh.
28. The AAA guy will be inordinately amused and confused by your situation and fix everything for everyone. Nicely.
29. The AAA guy will comment on how lucky it was that your 'friend' noticed you stuck and stopped to help you.
30. You and your new friend will laugh heartily and explain to incredulous AAA guy that you just met.
31. Sarah will get to work, albeit a little late, but hey - it was her boss who sold her the car.
32. You will end up hugging the AAA guy (because, he is, after all, Sarah's neighbor) in thanks.
33. You will have already missed your classes that you were supposed to teach, so you will turn around and drive home, your only accomplishment of the day being: wasting 70 miles worth of gas and scratching your initials into the ozone layer.
34. You will arrive home and put on your calendar to make some cupcakes to take to your new friend and hero, Sarah, and her boss at the bookstore, next Wednesday when you drive up there to do the make-up classes.