The Maxi Pad -or- About My Day

So I've dubbed my vehicle the Maxi. It started out innocently enough. It is a '94 Dodge Caravan and it's big and boxy. Commonly referred to as minivans, I said this is not a mini, it's a maxi. But then I started thinking (and it gets a little vulgar here), it is long, white and has a red interior. I know, I know, so middle school right? But I have a love/hate relationship with the Maxi.

It belonged to my beloved grandparents. My mother inherited it and when I moved back home jobless and floundering she signed it over to me so I could transport myself to and from the video store. It was fall, my favorite season, and everything was driving smoothly. But soon the crisp, cool days turned into never-ending bitter cold and the Maxi did not take kindly to such events. Her solution was to stop opening her doors. Well just one door really, the barn door, thus limiting my passenger capacity from seven (including two small children thanks to the built-in child seats-whoopie!) to two. Since I am somewhat paranoid, in the event of an underwater emergency, my backseat passengers would be done for.

Fine. Don't work. Fine. I will climb through the car like a spelunker in a virgin cave. Fine. I will squish large bags of giveaway and recycling through from the front just to save the planet. Yes, I am aware that my carbon footprint increases exponentially with every trip to the recycle bins just by driving it there.

But with every winter comes the hope and promise of a spring, a dawning, a rebirth, and a door that opens. Warm weather suits the Maxi quite well. She perked up, ran well, and the door even opened and closed on command. Everything was going so well until one rather hot day in April, was it? It was still spring, mind you, but we were having a bit of a hot spell. Well, this did not suit the Maxi one bit, especially when I coerced her to perform such tasks as drive on the interstate in the heat of the day. She was dones-ville and promptly died. Thankfully, on an unoccupied side street in a not-the-most-horrible part of town. $200 tow later and the shop can't find anything wrong. Fine.

Fast forward a few months to July. Summer has officially begun. People are travelling around seeing the sites and visiting friends. I too, was on my way to a potluck with some friends two hours away. I was running a little behind, accepting my arrival as being fashionably late yet proud of accomplishing the tasks I had laid out for myself earlier that day. So I set off a little later than expected. No problem, until I realized that a little later on a Friday afternoon meant one thing, rush hour.

So I'm going to be a little later than the pre-expected late arrival time. No worries. Start without me. I'll be there in time for cocktails. I got about a half a mile in half an hour. I'm in the center lane on the interstate in stop 'n go traffic when it hits. The Maxi is dones-ville. "In the heat of the day? Seriously? First you speed me up to speed limits that didn't existed when I was born, then you slam on the brakes like they haven't been slammed one too many times in their day, and now you expect me to stop and go and stop and go and--ooh no, not this Maxi."

I don't feel too bad because traffic already sucks but I kind of feel really bad because I just made a crappy situation crappier for everyone else as well. Well, it wasn't me, it was the Maxi. She finally manages to sputter to the shoulder when there happened to be a break in the traffic to my right. Miracle. I park her in the zebra-stripped webbing between the interstate and an exit, call Mr. Tow Truck Man and wait for yet another towing bill. Fashionably late potluck...unfashionably late potluck...I'm not coming...I could use that cocktail right about now though. Get the tow and this time the padres decide...she's going to the dealership.

Aaaaahhh...sings the choir of angels. The Maxi hasn't seen the dealership since my grandparents bought her off the lot for way too much money. She loves it there. So much so she decides to take a week long vacation spa retreat there leaving me in the lurch. Oh, and does she show any symptoms or die for her caretakers? Of course not.

Fast forward one month later aka present day. I had a tiring last two days with no end in sight. I go to bed at 11 pm and wake up at 2 am and 6 am and 7 am and finally roll out of bed around 8 am which is the time I was supposed to roll out of town. I have my tasks that I don't perform with the alacrity I had hoped and then my mom calls with a task. Long version: It involves driving out to her house to get her drivers license. Clever me got it yesterday when I was out there in the afternoon. Do you want your credits cards? asked yesterday me. No, said yesterday mom. Okay. I will take the drivers license and be prepared, thought yesterday me. Today I get the call from my mom. I need my drivers license and my debit card, says today mom. Great, thought today me. Now, instead of driving two blocks to the post office on my way out of town, I have to drive to your house nowhere near the post office, get your debit card which I asked if you wanted yesterday when I was already at your house and coming back into town, drive all the way back into town and mail it. Because have I mentioned what the task was? Mail her her drivers license and debit card because she left her purse...on Vacation...a Roadtrip Vacation. But these are mommy issues. I had to stop by the house anyway and I mailed it from another location. (Although it wasn't the airport post office my mom wanted me to mail it from so that it would be that much closer to its destination. If you pay for overnight, they get it there overnight. Sorry. Mommy issues again.)

So I make it to my sister, Madonna's school where I am to help her set up her classroom for the coming school year. Oh, did I mention that I pulled my back on my destination beach vacation? I did. It still hurts so pushing around heavy desks and lifting heavy chairs and boxes really wasn't my cup of tea. That, and my brain was dead from lack of sleep and energy. Needless to say, my sister and I weren't communicating very well and that's when we get testy. But after an energizing lunch, her kicking me out, and I refusing to leave, we got some good work in. Okay, one more errand, kind of out of the way but in the same general I-bothered-to-come-into-the-city kind of area, so let's get it done with, after which I'm home and in my bed. Take the recycling. Not all the recycling, just the glass because my county doesn't do glass.

Okay, I've never been there before but I know the street. At least, I think I know the street. I thought I knew the street but then the street exit off the interstate exit wasn't the street and then I had to drive even more to the next exit that was in the next town over where I had to cross under that exit to get back to the first exit that still isn't the street I wanted in the first place but thankfully I do know how to get to the street that I do want from this street. But is it right or left off of this street? Left. Nope. Right. Okay. Turn around. Found the street that I want, but is it right or left? Left. Left? Yes! I remember now. Okay, maybe half a mile. On the right? Right. There is was. It looked closed. Okay. Turn around. There it is on the left. Closed? Yep, closed. Hours? 7 am-4 pm. Time? 4:20 pm. Damn it!

Maxi? Maxi?! Are you okay? You seem a little...nooooooooooooooooo!

At 4:20 pm with a fever of 102 (or maybe that was the outside temperature but by the by it was what Maxi's thermometer was gauging at) Maxi died a third time. But third time really is a charm as she coasted to a shady stop at a trusted gas station. Thank goodness Madonna lives fairly close. She came to get me and we instead went shopping. She invited me to dinner with her and her husband and I suggested the nice Cuban place she had been raving about all day because if not we would end up at the lovely Mexican place we go to every time I visit so that they can watch me speak in Spanish with the cook they want to hook me up with, and so that my brother-in-law can eat and drink too much with no patience for the latin lax and then be obnoxious in the car ride back to their house four blocks away while my sister yells at him.

We pull up to the Cuban place. Closed. Oh I forgot, the Cuban is on vacation. Of course, the place I suggest would be closed today. Hope he doesn't pull his back on vacation. Mexican it is, where the cook asks for my number, my brother-in-law eats and drinks too much with little patience and where, as my sister is making a left-hand turn, he unexpectedly swings open his passenger side door without wearing his seat belt...twice...in order to litter. I yell at him this time.

Fine. Maxi has rested and I won't take the interstate home. You just have to get through four towns and the fifth is home. At town number four she starts sputtering a little. Fine. Fine. I won't go 40 mph. (She hates 40 mph. That's when she starts getting testy.) I could go 50 but you've had a hard day. 35 mph it is. Hazards on. Everyone else feel free to pass me going 60. I am perfectly happy just moving. We make it home. It is now midnight, I'm still exhausted, my back still hurts, I'm still awake, and I still have a busy, exhausting day tomorrow. Wish me luck.