The Men Who Love Me, Part 1

Half of this post is like a week late, but between Mason having strep throat, Landon having an intestinal bug which he then passed onto me, not much has been accomplished in the last week (although I did manage to strip beds and disinfect much of the house between Landon getting better and me getting sick). Anyhow. Better late than never. Gratitude is patient, right?
So, last Monday, Landon was on day 2 of a massive hangover. He decided to come home for lunch to eat something really basic and hopefully catch a quick nap. After accomplishing both of those modest lunch-time goals, he climbed into his car to head back to work. Only, his car wouldn't start. Landon came back inside, declared the battery dead, and asked me what we should do about it. I went out, also attempted to start the car ('cause I have magic car starting powers or something), but was met with the same fate as my husband. We remembered we had some jumper cables from an old "roadside emergency" kit my parents gave us years ago. Landon and I pushed the car out of the garage and parked it on the road (facing the wrong way -- silly us) and attempted to jump-start the car. It didn't work. Landon went in and looked up jump-starting on the interwebs to make sure we were doing it right, found some helpful advice, and we tried again. Again, it didn't work. At this point, though, it was time to pick up Mason and Landon needed to get back to work. So we picked up the boy and dropped Landon off at his office, and I went back and worked on the car some more with some advice from my dad and auto mechanic brother-in-law. Still, my jump-starting efforts were unsuccessful.
At that point, my BIL the mechanic was thinking that after three unsuccessful jump-starting attempts, perhaps it wasn't a dead battery. He said we needed to get it to a shop, preferably his. So, I spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out how to accomplish just that. After spending way too long on the phone with our insurance company, we found out our roadside towing coverage only covers a tow to shops contracted with the insurance company. If we want to use our own shop (which, duh, we do), it covers all of $50 of the towing expense. That wasn't gonna get us to my BIL's shop. Not even close. Feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, I decided to give up for the day and worry about it in the morning. After getting Mason to school and Landon to work in the morning, I met up with my mom for some shopping. I told her of my ordeal the day before, and she told me to ask Dad to come and tow the car for us on his trailer. When I got home from shopping and lunch with Mom, I gave Dad a call to ask for his help.
When I got a hold of my dad, which in itself is no small feat, he informed me that he had lent his trailer to a friend and wasn't sure how we'd get the car on the trailer anyway. I informed him that I was a total bad ass, but he still wasn't convinced. He said he'd think about it and call me back. Maybe ten minutes later, he called and said he was going to go pick up a battery, bring it down and see if he could get the car going enough to get it up to my BIL. Keep in mind, my dad lives an hour away if you come straight to my house from his. Since he stopped at my BIL's shop to get the new battery James had already got me, it actually took him closer to an hour and a half. So my dad arrived a couple of hours later with a new battery and some equipment to test whether the alternator was working. He switched out the batteries, made sure the alternator was getting power to the battery, and VOILA! we had a working car.
I am so grateful for my dad, who loves me enough to go pick up a new battery for my car, drive it all the way to my house and swap out the old one (maybe 10 minutes of work for a 2.5 hour roundtrip drive). I am blessed to have him in my life. He's a wonderful man, and I love him so, so much!