Nothing to do with cake decorating at all but I have to vent .. what an utterly frustrating day this has started off to be!! My typical day begins at 5:00 a.m. in the morning, which it did, no problems there ... got ready for work, I'm on time but just barely ... so I'm rushing out the door at 6:30 a.m., jump in my car and start it... my poor little car begins to scream at me ... the most terrible noise (extremely loud) starts coming out from under the hood .. well, being the dummie I can be when it comes to auto mechanics, I think, oh, just the belt squealing; it'll quit ... but noooooooooooooo it keeps howling .. everyone is turning to look at me like "lady, will ya just park the thing or shoot it to get it out of its misery"..... I travel about a mile down the road, I realize, my car isn't going to survive the short trip to work.. so I call my daughter on the cell phone and tell her, look up an auto mechanic shop on my way.. her cell phone keeps breaking up and I can't hear her ... I hang up and call my sister who begins going through the telephone book giving me auto mechanic shop numbers... by this time, I've pulled off the road and write numbers down with a car squealing and screaming out desperately for help and me too afraid to turn it off because it may not start again.. I'm trying to hear her over all the noise and have to have her repeat the address and telephone number over several times... well lucky for me, (or so I thought) there is a shop 2 blocks ahead from me... off I go again, me, the screaming little car, moving along about 10 miles per hour with a stream of cars behind me shouting out obscenities because I'm driving so slow ... I pulled into the auto shop; of course they're not open yet, so I sit and wait for the big rolling doors to open .. I called a good friend of mine to see if he could come and look at my car or just be there with me because being a woman, not knowing anything about mechanics, I didn't want to get ripped off by some greedy mechanic that knew he could take me for a ride because of my lack of knowledge ... so my friend tells me, I'm on the way ... .. about 5 minutes later, my friend calls back and tells me, his keys are locked in his vehicle and he has no way to get there until he can call one of those "pop-the-lock" places to get his keys out of his truck... he's feeling terrible because he can't get to me to help out... in the meantime, my sister calls me back to make sure I'm ok and tells me that one of my nephews is on the way to look at the car... ok, that's great!! .. NOT!! my sister calls me again a few minutes later and due to a terrible fog in our area, there were 2 major wrecks on the bypass interstate where my nephew is sitting in what's quickly becoming a parking lot .. he's stuck in traffic but he's still trying to get to me... we hang up, the phone rings again, it's my sister .. my sister had called my other nephew and he is on his way but he too is stuck behind an accident, so he's trying to get to me too ... here I sit, in the fog, waiting.. waiting.. waiting ... at 8:00, the shop opens, my 2 nephews drive up .. we go to speak to the mechanic and he tells us "we're not able to do that kind of auto work .. we just do tires, brakes, oil changes" ... the mechanic refers us to another shop just up the street, so I crank up the screaming machine again and off we go up the road another 2 blocks to the next shop ... YEAH!! they work on them.. finally something goes right ... it's going to cost me $250 to get it repaired but at least it'll get done today ... my sweetheart of a nephew drove me home so I could change clothes (I was in a skirt/jacket), get my motorcycle (fog is gone by this time) so I can get into work... 3 hours late for work, I've finally arrived ... only to find out that my secretary is out sick and my boss has been covering the office by herself .. thank goodness she's understanding!! this has been like a Monday for me ... ok, I'm done, vented and feel much better already 
Thanks everyone .... I've decided to declare this a good day and not let anymore of the time left in the day be bad
oh no!
tho' I have to admit -- I thought you were going to tell us they popped the hood and there was an animal, trapped, a howling for dear life
don't laugh....started my car once -- heard howl and then a thump and then say a rather dazed and a little banged up raccoon limp out from under my car -- seems I woke him up from where he had been sleeping on top of the engine!
Oh, poor ntertaynme- at least you got to work finally.
Oh Doug- I was laughing so hard.
I was reading what ntertaynme wrote and he thought the whole time it was an animal stuck under the hood. He laughed at Doug's story though, so ntertaynme you have to let us know what was wrong.
Speaking of animals, the last place we lived in was a duplex, and we had a nice piece of dryer tubing for the vent going out to the outside. Well, can't remember how long it was after we moved in, but once in awhile I would turn on the dryer and I would scritch scratching sounds going up the tubing. I always thought it was pebbles rolling along in the tubing.
Well, when we moved out my hubby and his friend took down the tubing and there was a squirrel's nest inside. 
oh man I know what you mean, my car started screaming at me one day (I guess it was a bearing that runs the big ol serpentine (Sp) around the alternater and such).......and then I kind of here a pop and the screaching stopped so I keep going thinking yeah the noise is gone (2 blocks later I see smoke coming out of my hood---look down car engine is HOT) it had broke the belt!! luckily I coasted off the highway and called a friend (who helped me get it fixed) but man people sure were looking at me funny (hindsight they must have been thinking what a dummy I was..first to keep going with the squealing car and then to keep going with my long belt flapping under my car)!
The one thing I miss when I moved from our small hometown to Indpls, is being so far away from my father-in-law. He has been in the auto repair business for over 50 years, owning his own garage. Whenever we had a car problem, we'd just call dad! Now I have to deal with it like "regular" people do .... via the yellow pages!
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%