A few days ago, I gave you a run down of the car troubles that my husband and I have been dealing with. When I concluded my last post, I was waiting for my husband and brother-in-law to return from the store with a new tool that we were confident was going to fix the car. Unfortunately, that was not how our day ended. The Baker men did get a new tool, in fact, they got a couple new tools, only for each one to break as they desperately tried to unscrew a bolt underneath the car that was so rusted to the car, it might as well have been welded in. For a few hours, they feverishly worked at this bolt trying everything. At about 6:00 pm, we admitted defeat and decided we would have to take the car into the auto shop. The problem was, in order to avoid paying for someone to tow the car, we would have to find some way, any way, to temporarily fix the car enough, that it could be driven a few miles to be fixed. Dan and Mike (Mike is my brother-in-law) decided they would drill all the way through the middle of our, ridiculous, nasty, rusty, ugly, little, problem causing bolt, and put another bolt through the middle, just to secure the car long enough to drive it to a mechanic. Ok, so maybe they didn't use those adjectives, but at that point in the day, I was using those and thinking a few others. It took about another hour and a half to drill through that stupid bolt. That thing just didn't want to budge. After they finished that ordeal, they headed off to the store for the last time. It was 8:30 by now, so I trudged inside, still wearing my PJ's and slippers, and put some left overs on the stove. I didn't want to know how much it was going to cost to fix that car, so for now, I was going to pretend like this wasn't happening.
The boys got back and quickly went to work on screwing the new bolt in. 15 minutes later, Dan came in, with a very discouraged look on his face that I've never seen before, and dropped a bolt, that was split in half, in my lap. This was the new bolt, that was supposed to be in that blasted car, but instead, it was sitting on my lap because it had decided, while being tightened that it was going to snap too. Without another word, Dan went outside, cleaned up the tools, came in and took a shower. He had just spent 12 hours. Let me say that again, 12 hours! on that car, only to have every effort made, thwarted. We talked for a minute before we went to bed about our game plan, Dan was going to put another bolt in the next morning and this time he wouldn't tighten it as much, that way it wouldn't snap, Monday, he'd have to get a ride from his brother in order to get to work and during his break that day he'd research options for mechanics and get a quote on how much this was going to cost. Tuesday, he'd take the car in and we'd get it fixed, hopefully this being the last time we have to do this. We both went to bed discouraged.
Sunday was Easter, so we put on a happy face and worked really hard to forget how stressed we actually were about how much this was going to cost and also all the hard work that had gone to waste the day before. The day went well, (minus the fact we forgot we had to walk to church so we were late), we had Mike and another friend over to eat and we played games and watched a movie. All in all, the day was great, but there was a cloud hanging over us as we went to bed. Dan got up early the next morning to go to work and I could see the slight sag in his shoulders as he walked out the door. He called me a few hours later to say he'd talked to a mechanic and the following is what we were going to have to do. Because the bolt couldn't be removed, they were going to replace the whole part on the car that this was connected to. Because of what part it was (don't ask me the name because I have no clue), we couldn't get it from an auto store, it would have to be specially ordered from the dealer of the car. Once they got the part, it should be no problem to fix, but it was going to cost us about 500 dollars for the part and 500 dollars for the labor. But, that's not all, because it was going to take so long for the special part to get here, we would be without a car until Saturday. This was a huge problem because Dan has to travel to get to work, so we were going to have to fork out money to rent a car for the week in order for Dan to get to work. To rent the car, we were looking at another 160 to 200 dollars. As Dan named these things off I started ticking other things off my list of wants (yes I'm that selfish), there goes the couch we don't have but were planning to get, there goes that shelf I wanted, Oh! and there goes the chest of drawers we also don't have but really need, and last but definitely not least, there goes my hopes of having a piano. After Dan told me what we'd have to do, I went and sat on the couch so I could have a pity party with myself. I looked around our apartment and started to cry. There were dishes lining the counter, I had piles of laundry to do, I felt like crap because I hadn't slept in 3 days and, we didn't have a car. As I sat there and cried, I looked out the window and do you want to guess what I saw? Rain. Of all things, it had started to rain. I couldn't believe my luck, this was a crappy day anyway, but add the gloomy clouds and buckets of rain, I didn't think it could get worse.
After I sat and moped for awhile, I decided there wasn't anything I could do about it so I was just going to put a smile on and take care of what I did have control over, such as dirty dishes. I went to work and my spirits started lifting. After a few hours of cleaning and a couple ensign articles, I was feeling much better. And what should I expect to find? Sunshine. Sunshine was spilling through my window. I had to smile as I looked outside at the beautiful world that had only hours before looked so gloomy and sad. This day was a testament to me, that no matter what happens, the sun always comes out to shine. It may take a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but the sun will always find a way to poke through those clouds to brighten our day. Yesterday Dan took the car in to the mechanic, and after a quick look, the mechanic informed us they wouldn't actually have to change the big part on the side, just a little bar that was attached to it. They had the part in stock so the car would be done by the next day and it was only going to cost us 200 dollars. I laughed and then cried when Dan told me. Our metaphorical sun had come out to shine. We weren't going to spending 1000 dollars on the car, we wouldn't have to rent a car to get by for the week and life was good. Let me rephrase that. Life is good. I knew someday, I'd look back at this silly fiasco and laugh. I'd laugh at how distraught I was, I'd laugh at how everything that should have gone right went wrong, and I'd laugh at the fact that in the long run, this wasn't that big of a deal. But it was even better to find myself smiling at the situation a few days later. For some reason, the Lord saw fit to bless us, just like he sees fit to make the sun shine after a nice hard rain.
