Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

I'm blaming it on the fact that someone was driving down the street with a coffin in the back of their pick up truck.

It turned out to be a tanning bed, but it looked so much like a coffin that Teacher Husband said: "Look, it looks like a coffin!" and turned his head to the left when he probably should have kept looking straight ahead.

That was when he rear-ended the pick up truck.

A pick up truck so burly that it didn't even sustain a scratch from the hood of our car that was completely crumpled in on itself.

--Did I already mention we were on our way back from looking at a used car that we were trying to buy for Teacher Husband?

If you have been following the story of our lives carefully, (and who wouldn't?) you've read that we have been down to one car in our family since the second car exploded on the side of the road back in August. THAT was when we were trying to haul up four enormous wooden apple bins from a little town about 40 miles up the freeway. (Hey! They were free!)

But, I digress...The point is, that we have been in desperate need of a second car, so TH and I finally went to look at one on Friday. We were just driving home in our own car, discussing how it looked like a great buy, when we saw the coffin--er, I mean tanning bed--and the rest is history.

The big burly man that got off the scratchless truck seemed to have sustained no injuries either. We were okay, it was the just the car with the crumpled hood. When we got home, TH checked under the hood and miraculously discovered, that nothing seemed to be out of place. He pronounced it good to drive and we felt blessed that was the worst of it.

The next day, I had to drive two-plus hours to University Town to pick up the Delicate Flower. (Did I tell you her car stopped working last week? Yes, folks, this is stuff IS too good to make up.) The drive down went fine, but when we stopped at the University Town Grocery Store, Delicate Flower said:
"Wow. Did you notice there is like, green liquid leaking out from under the car?"
I got off and found out that green liquid was pretty much pouring out of the bottom of the car. So, we drove the car with the crumpled hood and the pouring green fluid down the road to the only gas station I know in University Town. After some work prying open the crumpled hood latch, the nice gas filling person said: "You have a busted hose."
"I'm just visiting University Town to pick up my daughter," I said, got any ideas of where I could get it fixed?"
"You need to go to a mechanic."
"Uh...yeah, I kind of figured that...(what do you mean they won't do it at Trader Joes??!!) but, I don't live here so I am wondering if you can recommend a mechanic."
He directed me to a shop just down the road, and as I was hearing the cash register sound ring over and over in my head, we met the nicest mechanic we could have asked for. What an incredible blessing!

The good news was that he repaired the hose in a jiffy.
The bad news was that it turns out we also cracked the radiator while we were staring at the coffin.

Fortunately he was willing to fix them both there and then, so, $300 and 2 hours later, we were on our way home. In a whipping, blinding, pouring rainstorm where the two hour drive took three and a half--but, hey, I'll save that story for another day.

Just to recap: we have since purchased that used car for TH and he is very happy. I have a car with a brand-new radiator and a crumpled hood and when we take Delicate back down to University Town today, she has a brand new mechanic she can take her car to! See how it all worked out just fine?

Meanwhile, I have decided to find a little pumice-like rock that I am going to keep in the back seat of the car. Since we are broke again, I am obviously going to be driving the car around town like this for a long time. When people ask what happened to the hood, (oh, and they will--this is a very small town,) I'm going to tell them it was hit by a meteorite and show them the rock.

Because who's going to believe a story about a coffin?