Hell Week 2: Murphy's Revenge Continued

Day 2: Monday

Monday was going to be a pretty busy day for us girls.

The tractor guy was coming in the morning.

The moving surveyor was coming in the afternoon.

Plus, I was working on the details of the move in between the caring for and raising of our three small children.

I asked our tried and true babysitter to come over while the surveyor was here so I could actually pay attention to what was taking place.

He came and went and I still had the sitter here.

"Hmmm", I thought, "What can I do to most maximize my time? Pedicure. Um, probably not. Run to the grocery store? No, I can do that with the shortlings. Hay. We need one year's worth of hay. I'll go get that!"

I grabbed Emily, called the hay guy, and hooked up the trailer.

No sweat, right. We just needed 40 bales. I'd be back in less than 30 minutes. I could back it in by the barn and Allen and I would unload it when he got home. This would be awesome (and so very helpful).

The hay was great. The baby was happy. I was kind of feeling like wonderwoman having done so many good things in one day.

So, it's like 5 o'clock and I tell the group to hang out in the barn. We'll put the trailer away and feed the horse. Fun for all!

I drove the trailer into the arena, pulled it forward and ran out to open the panels so I could back it in by the barn.

I jumped back into the Mama Mobile (which shall be referred to as POCV or Piece of Crap Vehicle for the remainder of this post) and try to put it into reverse.

Notice I said TRY. Nope. Nada. Nuthin'. Wasn't going to shift out of park. I turned the engine off. Turned it back on. No go. Stepped really hard on the break. No way. Stood on the brake. Not gonna happen.

Now, I'm stuck. The vehicle is running, but we're clearly not going anywhere. It's around 5:30. Dinner is quickly approaching. I have 3 very hungry urchins to feed. I have no other vehicle as I'm a single parent this week while Allen is off gallivanting around making a living.. The sun is setting; I only have so many daylight minutes left to figure this all out.

Not to mention the location of the POCV and the trailer with 40 bales of hay sitting on it. Location, location, location. They say it's everything, right?

 That's where the POCV decided to crap out. Wanna closer look to see why this matters?

See that? The nose of the POCV is inside the opening of our gate. Wait? You can't see why that really matters? Here, look again.

It matters because I now can't close my gate. You know, the one that keeps my horse inside our yard so she doesn't go running around the neighborhood? Oh yes. It died. Right. There.

Told ya it was a Piece of Crap.

So, I enlisted the help of my neighbor. We unhooked the trailer. We rocked the truck. We hooked the trailer back up. We did a rain dance. Nothing made the POCV decide to do it's job and drive.

As dark set in, I asked my sitter to stay and help. She agreed. Without even rolling her eyes. She fed my kids and got them ready for bed while I started calling every body else's husband to see if they could help me out.

Thank goodness, a friend of ours who is well versed in POCV's came over and started taking her apart. Could be one of two things 1) a switch is bad (this would be good) or 2) the solenoid buried deep within the steering column is bad (this would be bad). After 2 hours of pulling fuses and trying to outsmart the POCV, guess what he deduced?

So, I locked the horse in to the stall which means I now have even more work cut out for me than doing the kid thing all alone since I have to drag the water trough into the stall and then fill the water trough, put bedding in the stall and then clean the stall the next day. We closed up the POCV and I planned on calling for a tow the next day.

Early the next morning, I called for a tow. TWO hours later, they arrived.

Here we are in our jammies hurriedly throwing our belongings out onto the hay because we had been told the driver was on his way.

Two hours later.

Bye POCV!

The drag marks made by the POCV because it still wouldn't come out of park.

While we were waiting for the tow truck, I had made several calls to the local car rental facility (if you can even call it that). We have no cars, they said. No, there aren't any in Albuquerque either. We'll call you when we get one in. Great. Just great. Whatever. A few days without a car isn't going to kill us. Fine.

You might think at this point, it was simply a matter of waiting for word from the mechanic. Not so! Remember the trailer with 40 bales of hay on it?

Still sitting there.


The gentleman who had helped us the night before generously offered to come back in the afternoon to back the trailer in so I could turn the horse out. So, he did. And, I did.

Did I ever hear back from the rental shack? Nope.

But, I did hear from the mechanic.

The POCV was running just fine.

Yes, you read right.

Went right into park and passed every friggin' test they could put it through.

Told you it's a Piece of Crap.