Last weekend, my wife and I were headed to a wedding in Maryland when our van broke down. We were stranded on I-495 less than 10 miles from the church with less than one hour before the ceremony was to begin. The weather was hot. The AC was not been working properly even though I had recently sunk big $$ into getting it repaired less than two months ago.
Needless to say, I had to think of something fast.
I immediately contacted AAA. They sent a wrecker to haul the van back to shop where it had previously been repaired. I then contacted friends that were also attending the wedding. As luck would have it, our friends and the wrecker arrived at the same time.
The ceremony was great and the reception was fun. Unfortunately, the plans my wife and I had made to visit Annapolis the next day had to be shelved for the time being, all because our van broke down.
But the best part that came out of the weekend were the things I re-learned.
One, marriage is still an institution that brings two wonderful people together.
Second, if you start spending $$$ keeping an 11 year old vehicle running, it's time to start looking for something newer. Period.
And finally, it's great to have friends! I was able to make a simple phone call and have friends literally pick us up off the side of the highway. They provided my wife and I with transportation to the wedding. Afterwards, they dropped us off at our doorstep and didn't ask for a penny in return. (For me, "Thank You" wasn't enough. We got them a gift certificate to one of their favorite restaurants.)
Yes, life can deal you some crappy cards at times. But sometimes mixing happy with sad, life's most important lessons can be re-learned.
PS Thanks Liz and Dan!
2 comments:
What a great reminder. You might think that everything is just going wrong, but I believe everything happens for a reason. Eventually you'll realize that reason.
Sounds like you had more than one reason. :)
It is great you can look on the bright side of things.
I was going to post this in my blog, but I will here too.
I had to pick up my mom at the airport last night but her plane was late, I had to detour WAY out of the way to get there because they shut down the highway both directions (construction and accident) and other things like that. Turned out I got there just in time, parked right in front in the short term parking picked her right up. Instead of ending up paying $$$ for parking an extra 2 1/2 hours, all that detouring got me there right on time. Funny thing was we had to detour all the way home because they shut down the other highway route back and we got home around 2:30am (haven't found the reason for that one yet) haha
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