Rocky Road, Indeed

I feel I have a healthy fear of cars, a fear that has been slightly alleviated by having a husband who likes to tinker with them. But overall, I live in a constant state of anxiety that I will do something totally insane and my car will blow up.

My nightmare came true a couple of weekends ago. It started off so wonderfully, you guys. I had packed up Wee 'Burb and met my roommate at her work and we took the tot off on her first girl's weekend with my sister-in-law at her cabin.

It promised to be magical: Wee 'Burb got to play with the puppies, the adult chickies would drink some vino and play in the hot tub and watch some movies. It was meant to be a relaxing weekend I had so very much needed.

And then GPS happened. You may recall my GPS was horrifically stolen recently, and Scott kindly lent me his.

Yes, I've been to her place before. But I'm one of those people who, when I am riding in a car, I play with the radio, eat a lot of junk food, babble a lot, and pay ZERO attention to where I am going. GPS, my friends, was a necessity.

And the complete undoing of my life.

It was all going along perfectly, I even recognized the dirt road to my sister-in-law's cabin. The problem is, I couldn't remember what side she was on and all the houses have long dirt driveways with lots of trees. GPS was telling me it was somewhere I was confident it was not, so I went past the non-existent driveway that she was insisting I take and decided I would turn around and call my sister-in-law.

I found a road I thought I could turn on (the road I was on was super skinny and full of trees, didn't want to damage my car with branches, you see). It was all going good for about 50 feet or so when I kind of noticed  that the road was also getting thinner.

Before I could realize that, I heard the most ungodly THUMP followed by my stomach going into my throat.

Roommate and I GASP and look ahead of us. She aptly described it as "Titanic: the boulder version."

By this point, I felt I was pot committed. There was nowhere to turn around.

I absolutely, positively should have just backed up. Every fiber of my being told me to back up, but I just...I kept going.

I don't know why. Perhaps boulder #3 occurring simultaneously with branch #200 on my roof just turned my brain to mush. I don't know.

At this point, the hood of my car started smoking and there was an awful stench. I looked everywhere, no lights. Nothing came on. I stopped and looked under the hood.

For what? Right? I mean, unless wires were exposed or something was on fire, I wasn't going to KNOW anything was wrong.

But we didn't see anything so I felt like the only thing I could do was do a 50-point turn and go back over boulder Titanic and pray. I had to get off this road, which meant going back over what I was sure was certain death for my car.

Every time I tried to steer around a rock, another one would hit my tire or another branch scraped the top and I felt the bile rising as I tried to hold back tears. Wee 'Burb was DEAD QUIET in the back, sensing that the Roommate and I were going to lose it any second.

I finally called my sister-in-law and figured out where I was, got to her house and saw more smoking. As soon as I turned the car off, my car, my sweet lovely car with over 100,000 miles on it, she started bleeding.

Seriously, dark red fluid pouring out of the vehicle as I stared on, completely helpless.

After my awesome brother-in-law consulted with my equally awesome sister-in-law and I simultaneously tearfully thanked my awesome husband for not telling me how stupid I am, everyone concurred that it was transmission fluid mixed with oil.

Which meant both pans were gone.

I was okay with this. Assuming that was "all" that was wrong, I had resigned myself to leaving my car in Wisconsin and facing a pretty hefty bill. Small price to pay for another 100,000 miles of no car payment.

Thankfully my in-laws had an extra car to lend me, we had free towing thanks to my Roommate, and we managed to get through the weekend drunk and happy.

Until I was informed by the mechanic that I drive a Saturn.

Yes, I know I drive a Saturn. This wasn't news. I'm not that stupid about cars.

I also know that they don't make Saturns anymore. Which means the part that I need? Doesn't exist.

Well, it does. Possibly in Pennsylvania. It's, seriously, the ONLY ONE out there and they're not keen to part with it. If they did, it would be $400.

My car is worth $1300 max.

All this is to say, please pray for me as I pull the girl card, crying softly while calling junk yards on my lunch hour today to see if they have Saturn parts.

Otherwise, know anyone who is selling a car?

Please tell me I am not the only directionally challenged one. And also that I am not the only one who has done something stupid knowing full well while doing it that it's stupid.

Balls, Massages and Pink Shirts

I promise you don’t have to like or even care about sports to get some level of humor out of this post.

But for those of you who don’t know, I am a humungous ridiculous sports fan. Specifically, baseball and football. Specifically, the Red Sox and Patriots.

I am not so much a fan of basketball. But my poor Boston transplant roommate is. Living in Minnesota is tough if you’re a sports fan, for so many reasons. Crappy fans, crappier stadiums, even crappier teams. It’s tough to get excited about it. It’s one of the things I miss most about Boston. And this is a point on which we often have joint commiseration sessions.

So her solution to our football depression this year was to get tickets to Girls’ Night Out at the Timberwolves basketball game.

Let me just stop here for two seconds. Scott is a basketball fan, the one sport he actually likes, though doesn’t follow religiously. While he was laid off he got offered a very cheap package of tickets if he went by himself. Which he did. After his first game, he got a call from a dude named Tony who proceeded to offer him a free suite for Scott and some of his friends. Their tickets would be free. Couple things: 1. Scott had spent practically NOTHING on his package, so he was not some high roller; 2. He couldn’t get four guys to agree to go…with a FREE ticket…to a FREE suite. That’s how bad they are. Tony stalked Scott all season, offering him upgrades and free drinks…I think maybe at one point it was possible Scott was going to coach the team, I can’t be sure.

So anyway, there are a lot of these gimmick nights. On Guys’ Night Out, the guys get to meet the cheerleaders and have their calendars signed.

No, Girls’ Night did not involve meeting the players. Or the mascot. Or even the cheerleaders for that matter.

But it did include free parking, two free drinks (they made a point to say including wine), and a free massage.

I balked at going at first. I said to her: “isn’t this a little pink hattish?”

For those of you not familiar, the pink hat girls are the ones who attend games in their full pink jerseys and hats. Typically (yes, I know there are exceptions and so please don’t barrage me with hate mail), these girls are the ones in the really good seats who text through the entire game while their boyfriends try to cajole them into paying attention. They’ve taken hours to achieve this “sporty casual” look that involves more makeup than Bette Davis in What Happened to Baby Jane.

I’m cool that these girls exist. I am not cool with them pretending to be fans.

I was concerned of hitting this level of poseur.

Anyway, eventually I agreed to go on the condition that we not wear anything pink and an agreement that if either of us drank anything but beer, the other could publicly humiliate them in some painful way.

Luckily it didn’t come to that. We figured out that between the parking and the beer, we had already more than paid for our tickets. We hadn’t even ventured into the massage.

So the massage area was…interesting. I kind of pictured a suite, or even a little tent like they have at marathons. Not so much. It was 5 massage chairs lined up across from a beer stand, a stone’s throw from the condiment shelves. Ah, yes, relaxing.

Even more relaxing? You get to sit so you’re ass is exposed for all the dudes buying drinks behind you.

After your five minutes of exposure, you get a gift card, a discount card, and some free samples. Seriously, the Wolves were paying US to be there at this point.

I remember very little about the game. I remember the pretzels being really good. And a plethora of pink shirts with a lot of discussion about how good the players’ butts looked. In baggy shorts?

Anyway, I will think of this day fondly now that I am booking my massage with my coupon and gift card, courtesy of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Hopefully in an actual room and not on the half-court line of the next game.