Hi.
January usually saunters her way across the first 31 days of the year like a sultry sloth, doesn’t she? So why in the two thousand twenty four year of our Lord did she decide it was time to start running like a wild cheetah? Will January be nuts for the rest of our lives? Was this just anomoly? Are we time traveling now?
I’ve been trying to figure out how to update you on life (lots of doctor’s appointments, wacko kids schedules, work, the near overwhelmingness of general life) but I didn’t want this to be a long list of the exact same stuff you have going on.
So to give you a glimpse into our days, I offer you a story:
It’s a Wednesday and I’m working. I’m a freelance writer (thanks for the support, my dear paid subscribers!) but I also work outside the home as a nurse educator for a large teaching hospital in the area. On this day, I wear scrubs and get the kids off to school, then drive the 7 miles to park in a garage and spend the day with the best team of nurses teaching new employees how to properly wash their hands. Dream job.
When the day is over, I grab my bag and coat, my mind already on What Comes Next: driving carpool for basketball, making dinner, and trying to get home before my youngest two return from school. I walk out to the car, pull the handle to get in, and … nothing. I pull again. And again. And again.
We don’t have the fanciest of minivans, but if my keys are in my bag, it should unlock. I drop my bag to the concrete and start to excavate. But I can’t find them. I pat down my pockets. Go back to the purse. I stand back up and smash my face against the window. And there they are, my keys, laying in the CUP HOLDER, like it’s a stinking hot tub.
Did you know THE CAR IS NOT SUPPOSED TO LOCK WHEN THE KEYS ARE INSIDE?
What to do? Obviously, I call my daughter to come pick me up. EXCEPT SHE IS ALREADY DRIVING TO SWIM PRACTICE in the opposite direction. So then I call my husband. He, thankfully, answers. But by the time he could leave work, stop home to get the spare key, come get me, it would be dark and I would have turned into dust.
So I do what any normal human who takes their carpool duties VERY seriously. I call an Uber and wait as naturally as possible by the side of the road next to the building where I work.
My coworker Sarah drives out of the parking garage and whether I catch her eye first or she simply isn’t the type of person to pretend she doesn’t see me, she stops and asks me what’s up. She then graciously offers to give me a ride home. (I willingly eat the cancellation fee for the Uber.)
Once at home, I find the spare key fob, but Chris had mentioned it might not work (we meant to buy a replacement battery months ago, but in all the busyness of life, never got around to it and not needing it until this pseudo-emergency, we didn’t remember this fact till now). I start to internally spiral because I can’t find the actual KEY. You know, like from the 1990’s? A KEY. TO GET IN MY CAR.
Thank God for Google, because all it takes is a quick little search and I learn the KEY is IN the FOB. You just have to move this little tab over and pull.
I call another Uber and pray I’m not blacklisted for canceling my ride 20 minutes earlier. A very nice man picks me up, drives me back to work, and tells me over and over again that KEYS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO LOCK THEMSELVES IN CARS and I tell him as nicely as possible that I KNOW.
So, there I am, finally at the car. I unlock the door WITH MY ACTUAL KEY.
I take a deep breath, buckle in, and calculate the time it will take me to drive home, pick up my one child then get to his friend’s house. I can still make carpool. I press the START button. But nothing happens.
I press it again. Nothing.
While we’re not super fancy, we are in the make-year range where THERE IS NO PLACE TO START THE CAR WITH AN ACTUAL KEY. It’s just a button. A BUTTON. And that button isn’t working.
This is when I start to pray. And I press the button not one more time, or twice, or three, four, but five times. And then with nothing left to do, I call Chris to tell him that I honestly am out of ideas. Call a tow truck? Hitchhike? Just live at work now?
As he says, “Hello” I am pressing the start button one last, super hard, ridiculously long time … and it starts.
I don’t know what to say. “Um, nevermind?”
“The starter is probably going,” he says.
OF COURSE IT IS, I think as I start to drive away.
Because we literally paid it off … yesterday.
Just Some Things:
This podcast between Kate Bowler and Russell Moore. Gets a bit in the theology weeds but if you can hang, it’s delightful.
If you can get past the first question they ask him, this podcast with N.T. Wright was great.
On fighting right. Everything we’ve ever learned in marriage counseling all in one hour. A real gold mine.
Remember when I said I wanted to eat less meat?
NOT going to say it’s better than a restaurant, but I will say this was better than the takeout we had the other night.
Even though it’s February, a prayer for the new year. A note about relationship expectations. Coffee + Crumbs is doing their annual Love After Babies series. So good.
And I’m teaching WRITING WITH PURPOSE starting March 18th - Join me!
We are, by all accounts, hanging in there! I truly hope you are, too.
It was the GIF waiting for the Uber that got me ;)
Keep hanging friend. Love you.
Everything about this makes me so happy. The GIFs. The car key story. The LINKS! I cannot wait to listen to every single one of these podcast episodes. So glad to get this in my inbox today. May you have no more car key/button mishaps for a long time, Amen.