Stay of execution!

It turns out that despite my last ditch housecleaning cancellation call yesterday, the cleaning ladies had already charged my credit card so they are cleaning my house one FINAL time today.

Phew!!!

I can’t tell you how relieved I am.  Well shucks, Cleaning Ladies, you may as well clean the house then instead of pursuing that there cumbersome refund process you describe.  But this is it!  I mean it!!  This is the final professional housecleaning and then me and my amateur housecleaning a$$ are taking over!

But this latest development on the housecleaning front totally freed me up this morning to…sit at the car repair place for FOUR FRICKIN HOURS!

Carpool lady is out of town so I had to take my own kids into school (imagine the NERVE of some people!) and discovered I was having trouble starting the car. Specifically, I couldn’t get the key into the ignition despite 5 minutes worth of best effort in that area.

Uh-oh, Houston. We have a problem!

$700 and four hours later and the tumblers in the ignition (who knew?!) are being replaced and I’m blogging to you LIVE from the car repair place.  Here’s who’s with me in the waiting room:

• a couple in their late forties. The man has a whole arm-resting-on-a-cushion-yet-strapped-to-his-body scenario going on so I suspect the woman is just the warm body driving him around until the cushion can come off.
• an older man talking about his bridge schedule on his flip phone.
• a woman about my age reading 50 Shades of Grey!  Just out in the open!! Not even trying to cover it up!!!  Get a Nook for goodness sakes.  Show some decency!
• a woman in her late 50’s who’s been here as long as I have. Except whereas I’m dressed in running gear she’s dressed in a crazy jeans and leather jacket combo that came straight from the 80’s.  Did we all think shoulder pads made our waists look smaller or something?! Newsflash: they didn’t…and still don’t. Her hair is oddly mussed but time travel will do that to you.

I’ve had to pee about every 15 minutes ’cause I have to drink $700 worth of free coffee and bottled water while I’m here. But on the plus side I won’t need lunch because I’m full of free snacks. Goldfish, animal crackers and granola bars are a bit heavy on the carbs — but did I mention they’re FREE?! (or $700 depending on how you look at it)

So…to sum up…I’m in good (well – maybe not good, but interesting at least) company; warm, fed and clothed. I’m $700 poorer.  But I didn’t have to spend the whole morning cleaning my own house!  Scratch that. I’m $850 poorer ’cause I didn’t spend the morning cleaning my own house.