Car Drama

I've always thought that it would be a good idea for me to take an auto mechanics class. These last couple of weeks I have been even more aware of my lack of car knowledge. It all began a couple of weeks again when I was on my way home from seeing the handsome suitor in Ohio. I came over a hillcrest in the dark and my headlights shone on a deer. I missed the first one but the second one landed with a BAM! on top of my hood and then crashed back in front of me on my windshield. The windshield broke into a million pieces but thankfully did not shatter. I was also grateful that I was within 30 minutes of home so my parents came to pick me up as I watched "Ashley" (my plum Saturn) being towed away, never to be driven again.

Since then I have been driving my brother Eric's car since he is a freshman in college and not allowed to have a vehicle on campus. His car was an ideal plan B while I leisurely shop for a good deal on a reliable, 5-speed, low-milage Honda/Toyota that I could cash off (oh! and dark blue or green are my favorite car colors). It was all going according to plan until last night when I went to meet some friends for dinner in South Bend. On the way home I drove over a nail and got a flat tire. I was close to a well-lit gas station and as divine intervention would have it, a woman filling up with gas offered to have her husband change my tire for me. These good Samaritans went above and beyond the call of duty- shivering in the bitter cold with me for close to an hour, making chit-chat, shining their headlights on the project when well-lit station closed down, offering well-meant safety precautions about driving on spare tires.... I drove the long way home at a snail's pace but hey, all's well that ends well.

Lest you think that is the end of the story, this morning I was going to the tire repair shop and I got a fourth mile down the road when there was again a jarring vibration. Yep, the spare tire was flat, "leaking at the seams" for some unknown reason. Finally my dad took the spare tire off; I take another vehicle (with the spare tire and the original tire in the trunk) to the repair shop only to find- alas, the repair shop closed at noon! With no fight left, I drove across the road to Wal-mart and waited two hours for some simple tire repairs/replacements.

The moral of this story: Sometimes life just doesn't work out quite like you planned. (Plus all you-all should appreciate your cars that are running well and getting you from place A to place B).

If you spent a day in first grade...

This week the lifeskill we are focusing on is sense of humor. My students are implementing this lifeskill very well as they have made me smile several times this week. Here are a couple of the lastest:

- On Monday I asked my students if anyone knew who Martin Luther King was. One student replied, "Oh! I know him. He was a president." Another student chimed in, "Yeah, he was our first black president." Still another, "Right, he got shot when he was watching a play in the movie theatre."
- During journals, one of my most easily-distressed students kept lamenting, "I'm just all out of ideals. I'm just all out of ideals."
- After a rather loud, chaotic re-entry to the classroom after recess, one student muses in very serious tones, "Miss Miller, what do you think happened to that quiet class from yesterday?"
-I hadn't had much time to buy groceries so one day I was eating instant oatmeal while sharing lunch with my students, one boy commented, "I think Miss Miller is pretending to be Goldilocks."
-One student tattling on another, "Miss Miller, Bob (name changed to protect identities) said that he loves school more than Jesus or God."

Getting rid of housemates

I guess this story all began one evening when I boasted to a friend that I used to be afraid of mice but now I not nearly as wimpy. I think my exact words were, "I'm getting much braver."

The very next evening my sister Emily and her husband Shawn came to my apartment for dinner. We are sitting at my kitchen table eating black bean salad and solving the world's problems when Shawn stops in mid-sentenct to point at my toaster. He whispers, "Look over there," as a mouse runs from behind my microwave all the way across my windowsill and darts into the top of my stove. Yep, you guessed it, the recently-claimed "brave" spirit vanishes and I begin to scream. Shawn quickly rises to the challenge and starts dis-assembling the stove. Each time we hear scurrying noises or see glimpses of brown fur dashing to a new hiding spot, there are more high-pitched squeals and freaked-out, knee-kicking dances around the kitchen.

Shawn finally gets into a face-off when he opens the bottom drawer to find not one mouse, but two squinting at him with their beady eyes. Now try to imagine- Shawn is halfway hidden underneath the disassembled stove with an oven mitt in one hand, a pair of tongs in the other staring at two mice, one in each of the back corners. Emily and I are his "back-ups", standing safely removed on kitchen chairs, one wildly waving a spatula in hand, the other with a broom. Shawn corners one of the mice as it makes its mad dash behind the wastebasket and catches it with the tongs. The other runs across my feet on its way to the storage closet while I do some more "high knee kicks". In the end, we set two traps, tried to put my kitchen back in order and called it a night.

I think the moral of this story is: Always have an extra pair of tongs and a courageous brother-in-law around to get rid of unwanted housemates. Oh, and leave a bit of "growth room" when you talk about your conquered fears.

P.S. When I came home after my family Christmas, both traps were full.

P.P. S. I emptied the traps myself. Perhaps I should get some of my brave points back.