Comedy of Errors

That title doesn’t EVEN begin to describe Jennifer’s first trip home from Utah in her “new” used car. She had planned to make the trip around Mother’s Day 2009. However, too many other people had requested the week off ahead of her, so she was delayed a couple of weeks. To help justify driving nearly 2000 miles across country, in addition to taking off a week of work, she enrolled in an advanced CPR training course that is required for her job to be conducted here in Raleigh. Nothing like adding a time clock to her trip, forcing her to be in Raleigh NC by Friday 8:00 a.m. ET after leaving Duchesne UT Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m. MT. Allowing 60 hours for traveling what should normally take 30 hours usually works just fine. And actually, by most accounts, it would be considered good planning. Not so for the offspring of Tony McCann!

She had tried to find someone in Utah to return East with her to enjoy the riding and driving responsibilities. However, due to one constraint or the other, it didn’t work out. So, she and faithful companion, Raleigh (her rescued part boxer, part black lab dog - appropriately named after the city of her alma mater, NC State) piled into her XTerra and headed East after work on Tuesday evening. I spoke with her before leaving and begged her to spend the night at base and head out Wednesday morning. She was having NONE of that. She was on cloud nine after having a great week at work. She’s ‘developing’ to become a senior level field assistant. The team she was with last week was extremely supportive and encouraging. They had gotten up at 5:00 a.m. to hike to the top of the highest slope with her group Tuesday to see the sunrise. It was gorgeous. That and the great week was just the adrenaline boost she needed to fuel her long journey home. Or so she thought.

As is usually the case, I used my partner in crime – Google – to assist me with keeping an up to the minute (well, maybe every couple of hours) track on her progress across our nation. The thought did run through my head that if I had just installed that GPS chip in her as I had threatened to do after the helicopter incident (see “Jennifer’s BIG College Senior Spring Break Adventure” for more details!), this task would be so much easier. But alas, my implantation idea was dismissed. Besides, it’s more fun calling every hour for an update, changing the ‘from’ field on googlemaps.com, and giving the update on estimated arrival time. After the adrenaline started to wear off, she didn’t look so forward to my chipper T-x hours countdown. I nonetheless was thrilled to ask ‘what mile marker are you on now?’, and zoom in to tell her exactly what I was seeing via cyber space vs. her real time experience. I LOVE the internet!!

As the time ticked off the clock and the miles accumulated, I again started begging her to stop somewhere and rest. Before the trip, I had given her all the motherly warnings of “don’t sleep at rest stops after dark, don’t sleep in gas stations, don’t sleep on the side of the road, don’t, don’t”. Of course I was given the “Ok, Mother!” retort. But when I could hear the wind being sucked out of her sails the further she drove, I didn’t really care where she slept. I just wanted her to sleep. Around 10:30 (eastern time) Wednesday night, I tried to call her yet again. There was no answer. My heart skipped a beat, but I was being the eternal optimist and tried not to think of what that could mean. I proceeded to get into the hot tub and told Cassidi if she called, to try and get her to rest. When I came in, Cass said she had indeed called. It turns out she had tried to stop and sleep, but just couldn’t settle down long enough to rest. She decided to hop back in the saddle (thank goodness she wasn’t really riding a horse for this trek!), and give it another go.

At this point, she had been awake for nearly 40 hours and had been driving over 24 hours straight. She was beyond exhaustion, but the thought that she could be home and in bed sleeping in a few short hours was driving her to DRIVE! She should have recognized the warning signs of an all out deflation, but decided the road of total denial was much more appealing when the reward was so attractive. Little did she know that while her energy was waning, her car’s was as well. What’s that old saying about hindsight being 20-20?!

I tried to call her again before going to bed around 11:00. Again, no answer. I threw in the towel, put on my “sleep” aromatherapy lotion, turned on my rainforest spa sounds, and attempted to go to sleep myself. Around 11:30 the phone rang, and I had that swimming sensation of flaying out of the warm cocoon of sleep. It was Jennifer. She wanted to know “Is Dad home yet”? UGH!! That is NEVER a good sign. At this point, I didn’t think he was home. He had stayed in Charlotte for the evening to work on the little house he bought (see “Tony’s BIG Crack House Adventure” for more details). She was telling me that her car was making a funny noise, and she wasn’t sure what it was. Again, another sentence a Mother NEVER wants to hear as her daughter is trekking cross country! As I got up to look in the house for him, he was actually walking through the front door. Just as I reached him to hand him the phone, she said “Ok, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you right back”. Double UGH!! I updated Tony on her call, and we waited. He had stayed up late the night before and was more than ready to hit the sack. I kept telling him he needed to get up and get ready to go rescue her wherever she was. He refused to listen and snuggled up like a bug in a rug.

When Jennifer finally called back around 12:00, I just handed the phone to him to answer. On the other end, all I could hear were heavy sobs with an understandable word or two in between. My heart sank. She was definitely in some sort of car trouble and needed help. I immediately hopped out of bed to get the pc cranked up so googlemaps could tell us how to find her. I was at the ready and waiting for the answer to my continued question of “Where is she?” Meanwhile, Tony’s response to her was a little more annoying.

I have to say in his defense, that even after 24 years, he’s not use to us women! As soon as any of us shed a tear, he’s a puddle! And now that Jennifer was on the phone in a sleep deprived full on meltdown, his “pet her until she’s all better” instinct kicked in. Me, on the other hand? As soon as I knew she wasn’t injured or in danger, I was ready to strangle her for not having stopped to rest (yeah, see how that type A kicks back in at times of distress?!). It’s not hard to guess why they always go to him first when something bad happens! Anyway, I told him to give me the phone, as after 5 minutes of coddling, she was having none of his “find a happy place” parenting.

When I got her on the phone, she was rambling on about her bad luck and why does this have to happen to me and such. At this point, she was completely delirious from hours of hypnotic driving without any sleep. You have to know Jennifer to understand how she operates. She is all about denial – denial about any bad feelings she may have, denial about impending conflict, denial about WHATEVER that generates any feelings of conflict! So, I did my usual “mean Mom” impersonation and got her calmed down (thank goodness someone in this family is conflict oriented!).

It turns out she was in the parking lot of a Ramada Inn just outside of Lexington KY. When the car had started making a funny noise, she decided to check the oil. In her job, she’s learned how to do some preventive maintenance steps for cars. (Tony’s VERY proud of her as he’s a wannabe mechanic). It looked like the oil was low, so she added some. She drove the car in circles around the Ramada Inn parking lot to see if the noise had fixed itself or not. It didn’t. And in addition, the water temperature was rising. Again, she got out to check things under the hood. At some point, she leaned down and her cell phone fell out of her jacket pocket – unbeknownst to her. She got back in the car, drove in circles some more to no avail. At this point, she decided to call us to provide a report. Hand went to pocket to retrieve phone; hand came up empty! Panic started to set in when she couldn’t locate it in the car either. She decided to check outside the car and found it smashed on the ground. When it fell out, she had run over it. As she was telling me about running over her phone, I asked who’s phone she was calling me from. It was hers. Only the screen was smashed, but she could still call in and out. Shew, that disaster averted.

So, now what?! I started searching on the web to find the specific Ramada Inn in Lexington to get directions for Tony. After I had gotten her calmed down, he talked to her and decided it wasn’t worth the risk of driving the car any further. He got out of bed, dressed, and went to load his car hauler trailer (see “Tony’s trailer for every occasion” for more details). Meanwhile, I got directions for him and instructed Jennifer to finally lie down and get the rest she needed for many hours.
Lexington is a little over 5 hours from us. Tony left just before 1:00 a.m. I reapplied my aromatherapy, turned on the rainforest spa sounds, and tried to block out the “what if” thoughts bouncing through my head. There was no need for me to lose sleep worrying as there wasn’t a thing I could do. Cassidi had school the next day, so at 6:15 the alarm was blaring. As soon as I turned it off and got Cass going, I called Tony’s cell. Jennifer answered (that’s a good sign!). She said he was in the process of loading her car on the hauler. When I asked if she got much rest, she said “Not really.” I guess this misadventure had her fully frustrated, in addition to Raleigh being restless.

Once Tony got there he had her review her warranty to determine next steps as far as getting the car looked at. His goal was to get her as close to home as possible to have someone find the problem. She bought the car from Carmax and from the way it looked in the warranty, she had to take it to a Carmax for service. Again, google came to the rescue. I searched to find the closest Carmax. The closest one was an hour west, which was backtracking for them. There was one in Winston Tony was focusing on, but I reminded him, “it is now Thursday morning and she has to be in Raleigh Friday morning.” Based on now having them together, I was very worried what catastrophe might ensue (they each have their own personal black could – combined, they can be deadly!). I didn’t want to chance having them try to get to Winston late in the afternoon, have some major problem with the car, and it not be ready in time for her to get to Raleigh. While I was anticipating the worst, my meager little mind could not fathom what was about to happen next.

On my way to work after dropping Cassidi off at school, I decided to call and get an update. I expected them to be on their way to breakfast or on the road home. Tony’s reply to my “how’s it going” was again not what I was hoping to hear. Not a mile down the road from having loaded Jen’s car, one of the tires on the hauler blew. They had to unload Jennifer’s car and then look for a place that was open at that early hour that would have a trailer tire. He found one, but they didn’t have the tools required to mount it on the wheel. At the place he found that could mount it, he found a cheaper tire (see “Tony’s Scotch- Irish blood” for more details). Needless to say, he had to wheel and deal (no pun intended,) even in this time of schedule crunch. Once he finally got the tire situation resolved, he went to put it on. In the process, he wrung off one of the wheel studs as it was old and rusty. Again, they had to load up and go look for that piece. All in all, it took just over 2 hours to fix the tire situation.

While all of this was going on, I was checking in with Jennifer periodically. She had found out that she did not have to take her car to a Carmax. She could take it to any local Nissan dealer. They found one and made an appointment. But as she was doing this research, she discovered another speed bump in the road. When she pulled her car off the hauler after the blown tire, Tony had told her to lock the doors. She did so obediently. However, there was one slight problem. In her zombie like state, she inadvertently locked the keys in the car! ACK!! But being the good Girl Scout she is (not really) in preparing for the trip she joined AAA. All she had to do was call them to come unlock the doors. Only problem, her car was on the side of the road and they were at stores getting the tire fixed. She couldn’t call until they got back to the car. They had about an hour wait, after they tried every avenue they could think of to unlock the doors themselves.

Finally, tire fixed, doors unlocked, car reloaded on the trailer, and 3 hours down, they were off to the dealership. Unfortunately, they had over a 2 hour wait. Once they got the car in, they diagnosed the problem fairly readily. All the belts were dry rotted and useless. Also, the radiator hose had a hole. $318 later, she drove her car behind Tony for a while to ensure all was well. They loaded her up when he was convinced the problem was fixed. Jennifer and Raleigh snoozed, while Tony pointed the car southeast and set sail for home.

At 10:30 Thursday night, Jennifer drove to the top of the driveway. Tony had unloaded her car out at the highway so they’d have level ground. He pulled in not long after her. It was great having both of them home safe and sound. Tony was asleep long before his head even hit the pillow. Jennifer on the other hand was renewed from her short stint of sleep. She needed to prepare herself for the training class in Raleigh the next day. At around 12 I convinced her that 4:00 a.m. was going to come very early after her two day traveling adventure. She finally conceded and went to sleep, with a black cloudless night overhead.

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Epilogue:
Jennifer made it to her training class unscathed. She came home the next Friday for a week’s visit at home. We took vacation and made day trips around the area. It was a blast having her here. She left Saturday morning to head for Utah. We insisted that she spend the night half way there in Kansas City MO. She got home Sunday evening around 10:00 p.m. her time. We’re extremely grateful she didn’t have any incidents on the way back. And we are just as grateful that the incidents she had on her trip home are something we can now look back on and laugh.