And then there's my family. Now, I want to make sure that you know I realize that things could be a lot worse, but I just would like to let off some steam without having to punch anything.
There's a quote that Steinbeck used for his novella Of Mice and Men from the poem "To A Mouse." It says this: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." (or, in my words, "Sometimes we think we have everything planned out perfectly, and then life happens.") When I went to bed last night, I thought to myself, "Those words are the theme song for the day we just had."
It started off with a whole lot of sparks. And those sparks came from the collision between my 16-year-old sister's car and another's on her way to school. Luckily, there were no injuries (except for the one to my sister's mental state), but it resulted in the car being towed to a shop so someone could figure out how to fix a smashed left side.
The day took a turn for the better just a couple hours later. My sister finally found a car to take to college with two days to spare (I don't know if you can fully understand what a miracle that was without experiencing the stress that situation has caused in our house for the last 4 months. It was a BIG deal.) Then later, a friend of a friend came to check out the car that I badly needed to sell, seeing as I had bought a new one for myself and was the owner of both of them. Even after telling this girl all of the problems I had had with it, including one where it doesn't start in cold weather, she and her dad decided they wanted it, for some reason. This is the part where I thought, "Wow, the Bennett luck is finally turning around!"
Three words: GANG AFT AGLEY.
My sister asked me to run her to the bank to get money for her new car, so we got in my car. As I went to back out, something was terribly wrong with this car; the one I had bought less than a month ago. The power steering was gone and the A/C wouldn't work. We were pressed for time, so after a little bit of swearing inside my head, I ran inside and grabbed the keys to my parents' car and told myself that it would be fine, I just needed to have my dad look at it and say, "Oh, I can fix that," like he always does.
So, we got back home and my sister and the nice couple she was buying from rushed to the DMV to make it before the 4:00 closing time, and as soon as they walked in the door, the woman selling the car realized she had forgotten her driver's license. Her husband raced home and got back just as they were closing the doors. The DMV worker put everything in and was about to assign my sister the title when it was discovered that the car had never actually been registered to the couple selling it. They were confused, my sister was confused, I think there was probably a whole lot of confusion up in that place. So, scheme #1: phlbblthtdlfo (that's the sound I would make if I was really telling you the story and I wanted you to know that it just went to crap).
When she got home and told me the story, I sat there for a minute and then said, "The only thing that could totally ruin this day would be if that girl decided not to buy my car."
Fast forward a couple hours, to when this girl was on the way to my house to pick up her new/my old car. We got the title and bill of sale all filled out. I took the license plates off, handed her the keys, and said my goodbyes to my first car. As I walked back toward my house, I heard the sound that had haunted my nightmares since I first heard it last winter, when my car refused to start for me. I thought that after all the bad news we'd heard that day, I couldn't be shocked any more. But I literally said to myself, "Is this real life?" I turned around to see my car still sitting in my driveway, not starting for the girl who just bought it from me. I don't usually fell embarrassed, but it's like all of the awkwardness that's evaded me for 20 years pounced all over me at once. We apologized, and tried to play with some wires, then we apologized some more. They, for some mind-boggling reason, said to let them know if we got it running and they'd bring me my money and take it off our hands, while I was honestly holding back the tears that had accumulated throughout the whole day.
After they left, my dad and I kinda sat there, and then he said, "Do you want to go see a movie." Then I said, "Okay." We headed over to the theater to see a movie that I'd been itching to see all week, and about halfway into it, we both fell asleep ha ha. But, the weird thing is that, at the end of that unrealistically, unbelievably weird day, all I wanted to do was be around my family. We're getting tougher with all this stuff we have to deal with, and I hope that holds true for forever.
Today, I woke up and realized (again) the power of a night of sleep. It kind of waters down emotions. Sometimes, it's a bad thing (like when you had an amazing day/night previous, and you want to keep reliving it over and over). But in the case of August 24, 2012 in the Bennett house (which I will probably refer to as the Day the Cars Died from now on), it was an amazing 6 hours of sleep that allowed me to wake up and laugh, just a little but, at our strange luck.
So, if you're still there, I have just one more thing to share. “The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's 'own' or 'real' life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life.” --C.S. Lewis
I once told myself that this would be my life motto, and luckily it came to me while I was reviewing yesterday's events. So, yes, all of my human-made plans crashed and burned, and then the ashes of that spontaneously combusted and were then flushed down the toilet. But, it is nice to know that the one guy who is in charge of all this (and by this, I mean the lives of every person ever to live) does have a plan that can't go wrong. I guess now's the part where I wait until the day where I can look back on the Day the Cars Died and say, "Oh, I sure am glad that happened." Which will be a weird, weird day.
There's a quote that Steinbeck used for his novella Of Mice and Men from the poem "To A Mouse." It says this: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." (or, in my words, "Sometimes we think we have everything planned out perfectly, and then life happens.") When I went to bed last night, I thought to myself, "Those words are the theme song for the day we just had."
It started off with a whole lot of sparks. And those sparks came from the collision between my 16-year-old sister's car and another's on her way to school. Luckily, there were no injuries (except for the one to my sister's mental state), but it resulted in the car being towed to a shop so someone could figure out how to fix a smashed left side.
The day took a turn for the better just a couple hours later. My sister finally found a car to take to college with two days to spare (I don't know if you can fully understand what a miracle that was without experiencing the stress that situation has caused in our house for the last 4 months. It was a BIG deal.) Then later, a friend of a friend came to check out the car that I badly needed to sell, seeing as I had bought a new one for myself and was the owner of both of them. Even after telling this girl all of the problems I had had with it, including one where it doesn't start in cold weather, she and her dad decided they wanted it, for some reason. This is the part where I thought, "Wow, the Bennett luck is finally turning around!"
Three words: GANG AFT AGLEY.
My sister asked me to run her to the bank to get money for her new car, so we got in my car. As I went to back out, something was terribly wrong with this car; the one I had bought less than a month ago. The power steering was gone and the A/C wouldn't work. We were pressed for time, so after a little bit of swearing inside my head, I ran inside and grabbed the keys to my parents' car and told myself that it would be fine, I just needed to have my dad look at it and say, "Oh, I can fix that," like he always does.
So, we got back home and my sister and the nice couple she was buying from rushed to the DMV to make it before the 4:00 closing time, and as soon as they walked in the door, the woman selling the car realized she had forgotten her driver's license. Her husband raced home and got back just as they were closing the doors. The DMV worker put everything in and was about to assign my sister the title when it was discovered that the car had never actually been registered to the couple selling it. They were confused, my sister was confused, I think there was probably a whole lot of confusion up in that place. So, scheme #1: phlbblthtdlfo (that's the sound I would make if I was really telling you the story and I wanted you to know that it just went to crap).
When she got home and told me the story, I sat there for a minute and then said, "The only thing that could totally ruin this day would be if that girl decided not to buy my car."
Fast forward a couple hours, to when this girl was on the way to my house to pick up her new/my old car. We got the title and bill of sale all filled out. I took the license plates off, handed her the keys, and said my goodbyes to my first car. As I walked back toward my house, I heard the sound that had haunted my nightmares since I first heard it last winter, when my car refused to start for me. I thought that after all the bad news we'd heard that day, I couldn't be shocked any more. But I literally said to myself, "Is this real life?" I turned around to see my car still sitting in my driveway, not starting for the girl who just bought it from me. I don't usually fell embarrassed, but it's like all of the awkwardness that's evaded me for 20 years pounced all over me at once. We apologized, and tried to play with some wires, then we apologized some more. They, for some mind-boggling reason, said to let them know if we got it running and they'd bring me my money and take it off our hands, while I was honestly holding back the tears that had accumulated throughout the whole day.
After they left, my dad and I kinda sat there, and then he said, "Do you want to go see a movie." Then I said, "Okay." We headed over to the theater to see a movie that I'd been itching to see all week, and about halfway into it, we both fell asleep ha ha. But, the weird thing is that, at the end of that unrealistically, unbelievably weird day, all I wanted to do was be around my family. We're getting tougher with all this stuff we have to deal with, and I hope that holds true for forever.
Today, I woke up and realized (again) the power of a night of sleep. It kind of waters down emotions. Sometimes, it's a bad thing (like when you had an amazing day/night previous, and you want to keep reliving it over and over). But in the case of August 24, 2012 in the Bennett house (which I will probably refer to as the Day the Cars Died from now on), it was an amazing 6 hours of sleep that allowed me to wake up and laugh, just a little but, at our strange luck.
So, if you're still there, I have just one more thing to share. “The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's 'own' or 'real' life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life.” --C.S. Lewis
I once told myself that this would be my life motto, and luckily it came to me while I was reviewing yesterday's events. So, yes, all of my human-made plans crashed and burned, and then the ashes of that spontaneously combusted and were then flushed down the toilet. But, it is nice to know that the one guy who is in charge of all this (and by this, I mean the lives of every person ever to live) does have a plan that can't go wrong. I guess now's the part where I wait until the day where I can look back on the Day the Cars Died and say, "Oh, I sure am glad that happened." Which will be a weird, weird day.
I'm glad you survived. Also, if the movie you wen to see was Premium Rush, I am incredibly jealous.
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