What a day!!

It's official. Sean and I have horrible luck. Just when we think we'll be able to pull ahead financially, fate steps in and decides there are different plans for us. We had to take our car into the shop two days ago because something funky was happening. Just to name a few: the sensor on the driver's side door wasn't working right so to the car it was as if the door was open, which meant the car wouldn't lock and the window control panel wouldn't work, and the clock wouldn't display. Then, every time we started the car all the dials would jump all over the place and the trip odometer would reset. So of course, we called Bruce Neilson (our mechanic) and we brought it in to him on Tuesday. He fixed it right up and it worked fine.... until today. Sean and I walked out to the car, ready to leave work for the night and the car wouldn't unlock with the clicker. Logic set in and we unlocked it with the key (we had to go waaaay back in time for that), but when we tried to start the car the alarm went off and wouldn't stop unless we pulled the key out of the ignition. Yes, uh oh is right.

We tried everything: unlocking and relocking the car (with the key of course), pulling the remote apart to see if it needed a new battery, we even read the whole manual... to no avail. We talked to Sean's boss (who I think is also a mechanic?) and he said it probably had something to do with the key, that the chip in the key went bad and we needed a new one. We then called Stephen Wade Honda and talked to a tech there who said our key would probably need to be reprogrammed. The only problem was how do we get the car there if the alarm is going off? Answer: drive it while the alarm is blaring. That's not embarrassing at all... (right). I didn't even know that was an option! But lo and behold, as soon as we turned the key, it started right up. So we drove it to Stephen Wade with the annoying alarm announcing our arrival. I've never had so many people look at me with disgust as I did tonight.

Unfortunately, the guy working didn't have a clue about anything. After doing his own 2 minute assessment, he told us that it would be at least an hour before a tech could look at it and it would be a minimum $85 just for the diagnostic. We asked the guy if it could possibly be the key and he said "I don't know." We asked him if it could be a fuse, his reply? "I don't know." So we opted to take it back to Bruce, he's always fair. And the Stephen Wade guy? Not a happy camper. The best part is that we got to drive it AGAIN with the alarm sounding. Yesssss!!!

We got it to Bruce's place (he was gracious enough to wait for us) and he took a quick look at the fuses and at the driver door sensor because as we were driving it to Bruce's, we discovered that the same problems that made us take the car in two days ago were happenening again (dials going funky, trip odometer resetting, clock not displaying, etc). He looked at it for about 5 minutes and decided it wasn't a quick fix and he needed to keep it for the night.

Thus began our trek home. That Honda is our only car and we couldn't get a hold of the in-laws to come pick us up. So we walked and walked and walked. Luckily the shop is only about a mile away from our house. And all this time, Sean was trying to figure out how he would get to his softball games (he plays on the city league with his buddies) at 7:00 (it was now 6:45). His friend Josh volunteered to be the taxi and picked us up while we were still walking, he took me home and gave Sean about 2 minutes to change and be back in the car. And guess what? Sean's parents were home this whole time but neither of them answered their cell phones or home phone, however they drove right by us when we were walking down the street. They didn't even look! Man... what luck.

Well I'm home now, thank goodness and hopefully our car will be fixed soon! We need date night!!!