(More than) Fourinarow.net

On Saturday, Dan spent the day in Nashville at the Highest Call Catholic Men’s Conference, leaving me with ALL FOUR children for the entire day. (I was jealous, but not because he had the day away to spend with other adults, having sane conversations. Fr. Larry Richards was one of the speakers of the day and he is AWESOME. I’ve listened to several of his CDs (free here) and he’s just incredible. Dan said he didn’t disappoint.)

Anyway… we began the morning packed like sardines in my bed. Slowly they came… one by one down the stairs… and climbed into bed with me. Of course, I always have delusions of everyone falling back to sleep, but my delusions always end abruptly (as they did on Saturday) with an elbow to the ribcage, a kick in the gut or screaming in the ear.

I got up and dressed. Too lazy to even pour cereal, I announced that we were heading out for donuts. (It is absolutely amazing how fast my children can dress themselves when such an announcement is made.)

Before going into the donut store, I told The Four that we’d be getting glazed donuts. “But I want something else,” announced Maria. “It’s glazed or nothing,” I responded. “Okay! I’ll have glazed,” she answered brightly. (I’m not a mean mom – I was just avoiding the squabbling that would ensue if everyone ordered different donuts and then decided by the time we sat down that they didn’t want what they ordered, but wanted what their sister or brother ordered.)

The donuts were warm and fresh. Mmmmmmmm! We sat in relative silence while wolfing down the first few donuts. The donut man was busy making donuts, which entertained the kids briefly while I cleaned up our mess.

When we got home, the kids played on the driveway (and in the yard, the garage and the van) while I cleaned and vacuumed out the van. We stuck close to home for the rest of the day, but after naps, I was anxious to get out a little and wanted to pick up something easy for the kids for dinner. (Dan and I were going to be going out to celebrate our anniversary– 11 years!)

I prepared the kids, i.e. told them the plan, made sure they had a snack first, checked for shoes and socks on all feet and herded them into the van.

So far – success!

That success lasted all the way until I turned the key in the ignition. And nothing happened. No clicking. No sputtering. Nothing. I looked at my dash and saw that someone had left all the lights on in the van. ALL DAY.

The battery was DEAD.

At the first sign of a problem, Jack and Maria went bezerk, Luke fidgeted and Sam started to cry. But. I was NOT to be deterred from my mission.

Dan’s work car was parked in the driveway. Surely I could find his keys and some jumper cables and have the van running in a jiffy.

The only things running in a jiffy, however, were my children.

Jack and Maria played on the driveway and I kept Luke and Sam strapped into their carseats. I located Dan’s keys, managed to find some jumper cables and hooked them up to his car. I figured I could just back out the van, hook it all up and be done.

I got Maria and Jack back in the van – so I wouldn’t run over them – and attempted to put the van in neutral so I could roll it out. I couldn’t do it. Everything was locked up. Now, I know you’re thinking, “What? What’s so hard about putting a car into neutral?” But, really, I couldn’t do it. The gear shift wouldn’t budge. I tried everything – including reading the owner’s manual – to no avail. I was getting p*ssed. I knew there had to be some trick that I just wasn’t aware of.

I called the Honda dealer. It was 4:35 p.m. Guess what time they close on Saturday? 4:00 p.m.

Lucky for me, my hairdresser is married to the Honda service manager. After taking 10 minutes to look up her number (you’d think I’d know it – she’s my hairdresser and one of my Uppercase Living recruits), I called and asked if her husband was home. Nope. He’s out in some state park camping. She told me she’d try to call him.

She called back. She was unable to reach her husband, but called one of his colleagues – who had the solution! Apparently there’s a secret compartment on the steering column that you have to open up, put your key into and THEN the van can be put into neutral. As we talked on the phone I searched… and found it! Whoohooooooo!

(And, no, it’s not the ignition we’re talking about here.)

I rolled the van out of the garage – very nearly taking off a mirror and part of the garage door railing – and positioned it as well as possible. I then jumped in to Dan’s car and moved it (breaking all kinds of laws, I’m sure) so I could jump the van. I hooked everything up and…

It worked! Hoorays all around.

I jumped out of the van, unhooked everything, moved Dan’s car back, stowed the jumper cables, made sure his car was properly secured and then got back into the van. “We’re off!” I told the kids. “Finally!”

Before I could pull out of the driveway and into the street, a truck pulled up. A big, macho truck, with three macho men inside. Dan, Kyle and Jim. Conveniently back from the conference just after I could have used their help.

P.S. You know what was the most annoying thing about it all? Not that the battery was dead. Not that the kids were rambunctious during a crisis. Not that the service department was closed. Not that I had to do a lot of jumping in an out of vehicles. And not even that the guys showed up just not in the nick of time. Nope. The most annoying thing about it all was Doubting Dan. When I told him the story and about the secret compartment and not being able to put the van into neutral, HE DIDN’T BELIEVE ME.

Did I mention that this Saturday, I’m going to be attending the Catholic Women’s Conference in Nashville? Dan will be home with ALL FOUR all day.

I don’t feel guilty in the least.