Car Stuff Is For Husbands

Today I'm furious at Chrysler. You see, with my cool, hip white minivan in a world of Johnson County minivans I ought to get special treatment because I have three, yes three, full-size carseats taking up the bulk of the seating in that van. So when I take in my car for service - no less for faulty turn signals that constitute an enormous safety issue - I shouldn't get put at the bottom of the heap. Clearly I need that car back the same day, because what other car can fit three carseats? And we all know I can't drag three young kids in for a 3-hour wait on a vehicle fix, so I have to choose a work day for this car hassle. So first I had to take a long lunch from work to get the car there. Then I had to haggle for a shuttle ride (which was some dealership employee's personal car and she took me back to work on her way home). The shuttle officially stopped at noon (before I dropped off my car actually) so I knew on my way back to work that I had no way to return. That meant begging for a ride from colleagues. "Hey! Hey you! Do you drive north on Metcalf to get home? Can I get a ride today?" Amazingly I found someone in my own group who promised a ride (and made good on the promise), but it took me over an hour to secure this ride. The husband finally offered a ride once I had already found one.

So what's truly infuriating is that at 4pm I get a call from the dealership explaining that no, um, we didn't get to your car today, we only had one electronics tech in today and he got backed up. Excuse me?! I have to go through this fiasco again on my next office day? Instead of letting them off the hook, I politely but forcefully explained that this was an enormous inconvenience and they better get the car finished on Wednesday because I'm not doing this a third time. And in the meantime, maybe they ought to reconsider their 'first come first served' policy when some poor mother of a litter of children comes in with a safety-related issue on her car. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

And of course, I'm of the personal mindset (call it 1950s, maybe, but on this one car topic I'm fully a traditionalist) that my husband should be handling all this hassle and I shouldn't be bothered with it. Car stuff is for guys. The car people don't treat women well anyways, right? So I'm super irritated that this has become my mess to deal with.

With the car fiasco, I got home a full hour later than usual and saw my kids for only two hours before they went to bed. The nanny had trashed the house, so while I talked on the phone with my childhood friend I cleaned up the basement while Kyle cleaned up the main floor. The phone call helped my mood but the cleaning really irked me - my day should not consist of only two hours with my kids and the rest at work or cleaning the house or dealing with car issues. What a waste of a day.

And Molly decided to get snotty all the sudden, and woke up one minute ago crying, so despite the 'all clear' from the doc yesterday I'm betting she'll be in earache land by Thursday. Sigh. Lily was still in rare form and cried most of the two hours I saw her tonight. Claire was in full brat mode and ran to daddy every time I enforced a normal rule. And now that I just wrote that about the kids, I'm thinking that maybe those two short hours with them was a blessing in disguise - maybe any more of their crankiness would have done me in.

The constant stress of layoff news isn't exactly helping my general outlook at the moment. They just need to pick the unfortunate folks and get it over with - it's the waiting that is so cruel!