Next Time I'm Taking A Blow Torch With Me

I am 100% behind National Coming Out Day on October 11th, but the Coming Out Day that happened the past Saturday? Noooooooo! If you are lucky enough to live somewhere that has, thus far, avoided the stink bug invasion, you are SO LUCKY. Saturday was their Coming Out Day, and by that I mean OMG THERE ARE SO MANY STINK BUGS.

I suppose they emerged because the weather was mild. I know they were looking to upgrade their hiding places for the winter as they were creeping and crawling all over ever surface the eye could see. When we pulled into the parking lot at the car dealership, you would have thought it was partly cloudy outside. But, no, there were just THAT many stink bugs flying around. There were fat ones and skinny ones and big ones and small ones and evil ones and eviler ones and the point is, THERE WERE THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF THEM. FLYING. CRAWLING. IN MY SPACE.

(Before you start thinking you need to bust through your computer and take away my CAPS LOCK key, no REALLY, it looked like like the world was ending. At one point, I literally counted 116 of them crawling on one window of the dealership.) (Yes, I'm a dork who randomly counts things.)(All the time.)

The stink bug apocalypse made the whole car buying experience a whole special level of suck. I mean, it would have been suck no matter what, but when you have to spend every single second of car buying torture darting your eyes to and fro to make sure there isn't a stink bug trying to crawl into your ear, EVERYTHING is harder.

Our salesman was one of those jerks who likes to play games.

The stink bugs were trying to fly into my ears.

It was hot. (This is coming from she-who-is-always-cold, btw.)

A certain 4-year old was in no mood to sit around and wait for three hours.

All of that came together to create a perfect storm of stress. Problem Numero Uno was the salesman who apparently had a stash of hard liquor and a really good movie around back because he wouldn't stay at his desk for even two seconds. Each time he would return, his listening skills would be crappier than they were five minutes prior. I could have used every ounce of my energy just trying to get him to quit being a pain in the butt. However, there was the matter of the stink bugs.

The stink bugs were crawling on the windows, both inside and out. They were creeping all up on down the doors, often going on kamikaze dives for the indoors if anyone so much as bumped the door. They kept falling from the ceiling, sometimes landing on the desk. I swear, they were all staring at me and my pretty ears.

Alexis is normally good for a solid hour if I give her my phone to play games on. Not Saturday, though. She made it about fifteen minutes before she decided sitting around was entirely too boring and that she needed to start using my nerves as a trampoline. *bounce* *bounce* *bounce*

I have no idea how the nerves didn't snap. I kept pleading with the salesman to hurry up before the ticking time bomb disguised as a little girl took out the entire tri-state area, but he was clearly not paying any attention to anything. He would be all, "She's being so good!" before he'd go run off to hide again.

She was only being good if you managed to not make eye contact with her. At first I thought it was a good thing and that it would make everyone hurry up, but not so much. They still moved slower than molasses, when they weren't hiding.

But then I figured out how to handle at least one of my problems. I couldn't vaporize the stink bugs with a stare. I couldn't smack the salesman upside the head. I could, however, tell the kid that if she didn't chill out, the stink bugs were going to start trying to get in her ears.

I WIN.

Dear Future Alexis,

You can just go ahead and send me the therapy bills. We're good.

Love,

The Momma Who Just Wanted to Get the Heck Out of There With a Brain Cell Intact

When You Wish Upon an Airplane

"Look, momma! My witch is following us!" Alexis declared from the back seat as she pointed at her window. Or, at least I thought she was pointing at her window.

"Mmhmm . . ." I replied. I really didn't have any idea what she was talking about. The kid had conned me into letting her listen to the Camp Rock 2 soundtrack for the eighty-eleventeenth-seventieth time, so I was trying really very hard to not hear a single thing that was going on anywhere near me.

Alexis cut through my attempts at zoning out by repeating herself over and over. "My witch is following us!" she kept saying. I finally decided I should at least acknowledge the kid since she was so excited. I gave her ye old I'm Going to Basically Repeat What You Just Said So You Think I Am Paying Attention.

"Not my 'witch,'" she corrected, "My 'WITCH.'"

I was stumped. I tried to focus on what she was trying to say while ignoring the screeching blaring out of the car speakers. At last, it came to me. Alexis was wearing a Halloween t-shirt. It must have had a witch on it and she had to be seeing the witch's reflection in the window. OF COURSE it was following us.

Not that any of that explained why she had corrected how I pronounced, "Witch," but whatever.

A few minutes later, Alexis asked if we could stop and explore around a barn. I'm never ever going to turn down a good opportunity at some photos, so I obliged. As we got out of the car, Alexis pointed to the sky and started yammering about her "Witch" again.

I followed her little pointing finger and saw a whole lot of nothing.

It was time to make like Nancy Drew and get to the bottom of the mystery. I tried questioning the kid for a few minutes, but nothing became clearer. Finally, I asked her to spell what she saw.

So this is where I tell you, yes, my 4-year old can spell a whole bunch of words. It's not exactly the wondrous ray of sunshine that some would think, though. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with your spouse with your kid in the room, knowing that you can't just spell the key words? GRRRRR. I would try Pig Latin, but Mr. Husband would probably look at me like I have five heads. He already does that a couple of times per week when I'm acting like I'm in the final round of the National Spelling Bee, so I try not to encourage him.

(For what it's worth, I figured out this whole spelling thing the hard way. Let's just say Santa had to make a fairly major return because two weeks after spelling his name and purchase, the kid suddenly was all, "I know what Santa is getting me!" It took her a while to piece the letters together, but -oh- she did it. DOUBLE GRRRR.)

Alexis thought for a minute, then replied that she didn't know how to spell it. I figured I'd help her out by giving her the letters I thought I knew.

"It's W-I . . ." I began.

"S-H!" she finished gleefully.

I was still confused. "Your . . . wish?" I said hesitantly.

"YES! MY WISH!" Alexis practically screamed.

I looked back at the sky, trying desperately to find the magical missing puzzle piece that would make everything make sense.

The airplane trails. THE AIRPLANE TRAILS!

Alexis had decided that the trails behind the airplanes were falling stars. She was making wishes left and right because there were about six airplanes total flying at the time.

I'm never telling her they were airplanes and not falling stars.

Oh, Internet, You Are So Welcome

DING! DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD!

Er, maybe not dead, exactly, but SHE'S GONE!

::happydance::

Yeah, so, that really loud sucking sound you heard Saturday? That was the closing of the giant black hole of money suck that was Audrey, my 2003 Audi A4. SHE'S GONE!

Thanks goodness.

For months now everyone within a fifteen mile radius of me and my interwebs reachy places has had to listen to me whine about that stupid car. For that, I am sorry. Also, you're welcome that it's done.

Now that I'm wearing my fancy 20/20 Hindsight Goggles, I can tell you that there were two major problems going on with that car. For one, the dealership where we had been taking it for service can BITE ME. Ahem. Let's just say they weren't exactly providing the services as one would like them to be provided. For example, we paid for a state inspection and 80,000 mile (read: EXPENSIVE) service earlier this year and they kinda sorta forgot to tell us we needed new brakes. And, of course, that was a fact we discovered the hard way.

The bigger issue, though, relates to that little $2600 repair we paid for about a month ago. We took the car in because it was shaking violently whenever I pressed on the accelerator. Which, uh, I kinda need to be able to do that. The check engine light had lit up, they replaced the torque converter claiming that it would fix the shaking and the check engine light, and it MADE ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE.

So, there's that whole thing where I have no idea whether that part actually needed replaced, but also had the bigger issue of the car still shaking. We were too chicken to take it anywhere to try to figure it out because we had already spent an insane amount of money on that car this year. (My personal favorite was the time the power steering went out when I was driving down a windy road. AWESOME. AND EXPENSIVE.)

My handy dandy 20/20 Hindsight Goggles tell me that the shaking was likely the result of something that happened during that little stop sign incident earlier this year. Getting to the bottom of that mess was going to require a ton of money, and even more time. I didn't have the time to fight with insurance companies and car manufacturers and repair shops and dealerships. It was one just black hole of money suck, and there was no way we were ever going to win that war unless Luke Skywalker showed up to save the day.

I have no faith in men named Luke.

Now I have a brand new Nissan Rogue. We managed to a great price on it (read: below invoice) but got completely screwed on the whole Audrey part of the equation. I'm signing that off as her taking one last swipe at my wallet.

At least now she can't hurt me anymore.

::knocks on wood:: ::crosses self:: ::prays to every deity ever named:: ::throws salt over shoulder::  ::considers deleting this post::