Coincidence

Right before Christmas, I backed into shopping cart in the parking lot outside Best Buy. I heard that awful "crunch" that sends your heart into your stomach, and was relieved to see it was just a shopping cart, even tho it was embarrasing to have not seen it. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed a lot of smoke behind me.

At the first stoplight, I noticed the smoke again, and looked around to see if anyone else's car was doing that. But no, just mine. Then the smoke got lighter, and as I drove around I didn't notice it anymore. I considered taking it immediately to The Shop, as it was nearby. But the smoke seemed to stop after awhile.

When I got home I noticed an electrical smell and pointed it out to K, but then that went away too. We drove it to The Boy's basketball game, and parked in front of the school. When we came out after the game, it wouldn't start! The starter wouldn't kick in. We called Auto Club and K waited and the rest of us hitched a ride home.

The Auto Club guy tried to jump the car, but decided that it was definitely the starter, and would have to be towed to the shop. So we had to wait until the next day, to make sure our mechanic would be there (sometimes he isn't). He was, so K had it towed to The Shop so it could be fixed.

After a few days it was done, and K went to pick it up. When he started it up to bring it home, he noticed the smoke was still coming out of the tailpipe! In fact, it got worse really quickly. So K had to leave it there again.

A few days later we got really bad news. It was the head gasket, which is expensive because the whole engine has to be taken out to get at it! So I think I mentioned this before - it's around $1500!!!

We finally got it back after the holidays, and now the tailpipe is making noise! Like it has a hole in it and is saying "putt, putt, putt" really fast.

Now this seems strange to me, because these are all unrelated parts of the vehicle, in different places, but they all went out one after another so quickly! And it all started when I backed into the shopping cart, yet it just doesn't make sense that backing into a cart would cause all of this. I wish it HAD, because then maybe I could claim it on my insurance. But our mechanic says it was unrelated, so what can I say?

It's like backing into the shopping cart broke the rubberband/wire hanger/gum combo underneath the car that was holding everything together!

Huh.

The day after Christmas, our friend D sprained ankle and fell off a ladder. On Wed, my Dad twisted his leg on the ice/snow and sprained the ACL in his knee. On Thurs, The Boy came down on his foot wrong in a basketball game and... sprained his ankle!
Is it in the air or something? Why the coincidence?

On New Year's Day my Mom called to say they'd seem a float from the town we live in in the Rose Parade. When I went to work the next day, a co-worker told me she'd been busy over the holidays working on a Rose Parade float. She told me there were left-over mums in the breakroom, and I should take some. I guess I didn't make the connection, because I was thinking, "Mums? Aren't they flowers?"

I went back to the room and found jars full of mums, and then made the connection. Oh, MUMS leftover from the Rose Parade float!

Who can say no to free flowers?