Monday night we had a fierce thunderstorm. Shake the house, rattle the windows, make you cringe kinda fierce. I looked at the clock and it was 10pm on the dot. This is the time that my oldest, O, was to get off work. I thought about sending him a text message telling him to drive safe & to maybe take the long way home. The way home that is main roads instead of windy back roads. But of course, I was afraid he had already left work and I didn't want him to try to read a text in the bad weather, so I just let it go.
At 10:20 the phone rang and I heard those words that every mother dreads, "Mom! (sniff, sniff) I wrecked my car. (sniff, sniff, sob)" Now of course it could have been a million times worse. It could have been, "Ma'am, I'm sorry to tell you..." or "This is Dr. So-and-So..." but instead it was my sweet little baby calling me to tell me he wrecked his car but miracles, he was okay. The car, not so much. It would have flipped over except for the convenient tree that was in the way. The tree may have saved his life. The tree that caused $2300 worth of damage to a $4000 car.
So my yesterday was spent getting repair estimates & making contingency plans. Because the timing of this was really, really bad. Not that there is ever a good time to smack into a life-saving tree before running your car down a scary-steep embankment, but this timing was exceptionally bad. See, tomorrow O becomes a man. Not in the Jewish way, but in the way where he is moving in with his girl friend and starting to pay rent & leaving his mommy-nest. And Friday he turns 19.
So this isn't a boo-boo that I can put a band-aid on and kiss it and make it better. This is a big deal thing.
We have a plan in place where he takes dad's car (the PT cruiser), dad takes my car (my 2 month old Rondo), I drive the monster SUV until dad can buy a new car this weekend (probably an Optima). When dad gets a new car, we will sell the monster SUV (a Ford Excursion) to pay off most of my Rondo. Meanwhile, we will save up the money to do the repairs to O's car (a cute little convertible Chevy Tracker). When it is fixed, we will unwind the process and sell the PT Cruiser to pay off the balance of my Rondo and take whatever money is leftover to buy A, the 16 year old brother, his first car.
Yeah, it took me about 2 hours to figure that all out. You think you're confused, all you had to do was read it! Imagine how much brain power that took from my stressed, sleep deprived brain.
In happier news, today I am going to go pick up thirty computers that York College is donating to our Autism Society of America Chapter. Twenty-five desktops and 5 laptops. We will distribute them to families in the area who need a new computer (these are two years old, we have families using computers that are over 10 years old). Yay York College!
Tomorrow Beastie goes to the neurologist. I'll update after we get home.
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