Be positive.

 

Do you ever get into a situation where you are asking yourself, "why me, and why now?" You have a day where it seems as though everything and everyone is against you. Your week has been terrible. You're getting bad news left and right. And you just feel as though you can't catch a break.

 

 

I think we have all had those days. Some perhaps have been worse than others, but I don't think there are many people out there that can say they don't know that feeling.

 

 

Yesterday, I had one of those busy nights at work, got little sleep the day before, was so excited about getting off a little early, and headed home with the anticipation of seeing my babies. My gas light came on, and I thought that I'd better fill up my tank now rather than wait before my next shift that night. I filled up my tank, put the pump back, hopped in my car, and turned on my car. Tried to turn on my car. Turned it again. And again. Click, click, click, off. Click, click, click, off. It wanted to turn on, I could feel it, but it just couldn't.

 

 

My battery. It's my battery.

 

 

The ironic part of this is that just the day before my husband was telling me that he needed to take the car in before we left for vacation to get a new battery.

 

 

"Oh Andrew, don't be silly, the battery is just fine! Why do you always jump the gun on things? It will be just fine, stop worrying about it."

 

 

He got upset with me because he said he knew what he was talking about and he was frustrated that I didn't believe him. I laughed it off thinking I was right. Well, here I was, sitting at the gas station after working a 13 hour shift, wanting more than anything to go home, and yet I was stuck with no real idea of when exactly I would be reaching my bed and kissing my kids.

 

 

So I had to make that inevitable phone call to Andrew, who was out of town, to tell him the bad news. "Honey, you were right. The battery died on me at the gas station, 15 minutes from home."

Initially, he had hopes of me asking some random guy to jump start my battery, but after much convincing that I was not going to be doing that, we decided to go ahead and give triple A a call. Thankfully they only took 30 minutes to get there, but that was 30 extra minutes of sitting around people watching. Let me tell you, you see some interesting things at gas stations.

 

I am sure people thought the same thing about me.

When the triple A guy did finally arrive, he asked if I needed a battery. Why, yes sir, I do. Unfortunately, I told him, there is no way I was going to be driving anywhere to get one after working all night and having to work again that night. Then he threw some numbers at me and looked at me like, so you want it? It took him repeating himself I think about 5 times before I finally understood what he was saying. 

He had a battery and he could change it right then and there.

 

Heck yes, do it! 

Truthfully, I thought it was going to be a 5 minute process. But once again, I turned out to be wrong and it took about 40 minutes. I sat at a little table outside the gas station watching the guy and thinking.

 

At first, I thought, why me?

Why now.

Why here.

Why after working all night.

Why when the one weekend my husband was out of town.

Just why.

 

But I quickly thought about it in a different way:

Thankfully my kids weren't with us.

Thankfully this happened before vacation and not while we were driving 12 hours.

Thankfully it's not anything worse.

Thankfully it's only $130.

 

Yes, I didn't get home until 10:30. Yes, it was an unfortunate thing with unfortunate timing. But on the other hand, I'm grateful it did happen when it did because it could have been worse.

 

I know it's just a battery, I know it's just a "car story" but it taught me a big lesson that although I already knew, it was still one that I needed reminding from time to time.

Be positive.