Earthquake. . .and things

I had no idea when I woke up this morning that today would be such an eventful day. It seemed just like any other day after vacation day: I was moving slowly and trying to get myself back on schedule.

Lunch came more quickly than expected, and my lunch girls and I headed out for our usual picnic. Upon our arrival back to the office, though, we found people huddled outside the building looking rather freaked out. As we soon found out, an earthquake had hit in Virginia and because the entire East Coast is basically all one sheet of bedrock, we were feeling the tremors all the way in downtown Boston.

In a move that, frankly, seemed a little overcautious, my office decided to close early, and I was out of there faster than I could read the closing e-mail.

Thank God, however, because I got a call later at 4PM about my car that had to go into the shop yesterday for some transmission problems. It was fixed and ready to go, but the shop was closing in an hour.

Since everyone was still in work and I had less than an hour to get to the repair shop I drove there with my roommates car, paid and moved my car out of their parking area as requested and proceeded to beginning a ridiculous game of car relay to get both cars home. 

I drove Becca's car to a nearby Stop & Shop, walked back to my car near the shop, drove that to Stop & Shop, got Becca's car (in case one of the cars got towed, I wanted it to be mine!) drove it home, and then walked the 20 or 30 minutes back to S&S to get my car and head home.

I'm sure a million easier way to do that are running through your head right now. Like taking a taxi, or something. But I was too cheap and afraid if I took the time to call a cab I wouldn't make it to the shop in time, thus prolonging this latest episode in the saga that is the life of my car, Betsy.  

(Meet Betsy: you may remember her from her starring role in this fiasco)

In the end, I got half my usual walk in for the day and some great black bean and garlic tortilla chips that were on sale at Stop & Shop (I decided to stop in on my third trip of the day to their parking lot. . .) so I guess the day wasn't a complete bust.