I could barely drag myself out of bed at 5:30 this morning, and once I finally did, I most definitely did NOT feel like going to class. I was tired and my stomach wasn't feeling too great, but instead of staying home, I told myself "Violet, this is exactly how you always feel on Monday and Wednesday mornings, so you have no reason to think you should stay home." I went to class, as always. Mistake number one.
In class, my partner Laura and I made some pretty awesome baguette dough. Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication on my part, I slashed my baguettes too early and had to wait a few minutes before they could go in the oven. For those of you who don't speak bread, that's a bad thing. They turned out kind of ugly, as did one of my challah loaves. I almost got to take a nap, but Chef Jeff had to get in my face and wake me up. Then he abandoned us all to teach little kids, which was actually cool because he's annoying. (Just kidding, it was tragic.)
On the way home from class, my mom and I decided to stop by Publix. Mistake number two. If we had gone straight home, everything probably would have been fine, but on the way to Publix, our brakes randomly went out, the power steering went crazy so the wheel would barely turn, the "check engine" and "battery" lights came on, and the AC stopped working. We were just a few yards from intersecting with Highway 52 and crossing a railroad, but of course, there was a Wendy's right before the intersection. Thank God for Wendy's. We ended up parked rather awkwardly in the middle of the parking lot right next to the drive-through. Seeing as how we had no working brakes, I'm just glad we didn't run into anything.
Of course this was the day my mom forgot her phone, so she had to use mine to call for help. We found out it would be an hour before we could get a tow, so my mom, my brother Brent (who had showed up by now), and I waited inside the wonderful air-conditioned Wendy's. Frosty floats can make the worst days so very win. Thank you, Wendy's.
Oh wait... I forgot the part where the AC in Wendy's seemed to be broken. Yeah, that made for a fun hour. At least it provided us with shade and a fan. And a Frosty float.
Once the wrecker showed up, my brother drove us all to the repair shop, which we accidentally passed twice. My mom had been told the address and the name of the place by... someone, I have no idea who... and this place didn't have the right name, but it did have the right address. She went inside to ask them about it and found out the place she had been told to go to didn't exist, and that the place we were at didn't take Crown Vics (which is what she drives). Fortunately, the nice guy who I guess owns the place said he could work on it. The tow truck showed up with the car and everything seemed great, so we were finally on our way home.
As my brother was about to pull back out onto the road, he realized his car was about to overheat, so he turned off the engine. Then it started smoking. The radiator had blown. I knew at that point that this day could not get worse. But it could.
The same thing had happened to his car just recently, and it turned out that last time he had also apparently blown his head gasket (what the heck is that?) and didn't know it. Everyone proceeded to say that was really bad, so I guess that's really bad. Either way, the car wasn't working.
At this point, it looked like we would be spending the night at the repair shop. My other brother Mike was (and still is) at work until 8, and my dad was in some kind of important meeting at work where he wouldn't be answering his phone. For a while we just waited, and my mom came up with a few ideas. We could cut through a neighborhood and walk home, or we could walk to the store where my brother works and borrow his car. Both would involve walking several miles in enough heat to kill you (or at least make you pass out) while carrying my tool bag, notebook, and several loaves of bread. And there were dark clouds in the sky.
But then my mom remembered that we have friends who live nearby. Yes, there are people in the world besides my immediate family... gasp. So she called the Walshes, and Mrs. Walsh (aka the other person I know named Violet) came to pick us up.
As we stood outside waiting, the one thing that always happens in movies happened in real life. It started raining. And I don't mean sprinkling... I mean the worst downpour I've seen in a while. Walking a few feet from the repair shop to Mrs. Walsh's van made me feel like I had just taken a shower, which was kind of a good thing because I needed a shower after sweating all day.
We did all make it home in one piece, and I don't think any of my bread or notes from class were ruined by the rain. It took three hours. Then I had a headache.
This was technically one of the worst days I've had this year, but it wasn't really that bad, especially since none of the cars were mine and I don't have to pay for them. The baguettes were mine though, and I'll pay for them out of my slowly dropping GPA.
Special thanks to God, Mom, Brent, Mrs. Walsh, Laura, the mechanics, tow truck guy, and the inventor of air conditioning for making my day tolerable.
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