Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This!

Neil and I had agreed to go to Sacramento to help Chris with the little ones last week while Rich was at a conference. When Neil found out he had a "must attend" meeting on Tuesday, I made airline reservations to fly to Sac last Monday afternoon, with Neil set to drive up on Wednesday.

So . . . Tuesday arrived. Rich left at o'dark-thirty for his 3-day conference over in Walnut Creek. Chris and I got up a while later. Trisha was awakened and nursed. (Obviously, that was Christy's responsibility!) Jon was awakened and dressed. (Yep, I'm capable of that!)

Christy's friend picked her up to take her to school so I could have Christy's car for transporting the kids to daycare. I know - I know!! What kind of grandma am I if I go to help with the little ones, then take them to daycare? But keeping up with a 3-year-old and a 4-month-old alone, when you're really not used to keeping up with little people at all, seemed a bit daunting.

So . . . my Tuesday task was to take the little ones to daycare, and then I was to run errands. That sounds simple, right?!

Some of you will appreciate the challenges involved in getting two little ones into car seats on a frigid morning. Car seats -- great inventions, but not always easy. Trisha's carrier/car seat weighs a ton and is awkward as all get out, but getting Trisha to the car and clicked into the base actually went pretty well. Jon, angel that he is, crawled into his own car seat, and I easily buckled him up. Whew!

I got into the car, looked up, and realized I could not see a single thing out of any of the windows. What's with this? I turned on the windshield wipers to no avail. What solid thing was impeding my vision? I used my cell to call Chris on her cell . . . thank you, God, for cell phones!! At least I didn't have to get both children out of the car, drag them back into the house, and use the land line! I asked her if she had a device to remove ice, which she did, and even told me she had both front and rear defrosters, which I turned on as I got out to scrape all the windows, with Jon giggling as I scraped and waved, scraped and waved at him. Thank the Lord for even tempered, happy children early on a cold winter's morning!!

Christy drives a cute little PT Cruiser. I do love her car! As she and I are almost the same height, I assumed her car would be pretty well set up for me to drive. Again I got into the drivers' seat, checked all the mirrors, put the key in the ignition, turned it . . . turned it again . . . turned it yet a third time, and nothing happened.

Did I mention she drives a standard shift car? Yes, she does. We made both our children learn to drive on a standard. They're fun. Right?! Only this standard wasn't starting. In desperation, I again called Christy, only to learn that I had to be sure the clutch was ALL the way to the floor, so I pulled the car seat forward just a tad, floorboarded the clutch with brake firmly on, and WAHOO! That little silver car started, and off we went. OK, there was a small amount of chugging as I began to explore the rhythm and flow of clutch/gas/brake/shift. You know how it goes -- every car feels a bit different, and it had been a few years since I'd driven a standard shift anyway.

Being a directionally challenged person, or gifted at getting lost, I had printed out MapQuest directions and maps before heading to Sacramento, showing me how to get to the places I'd need to find: Christy's school, the children's daycare in downtown Sacramento (complete with one-way streets), Trader Joe's, and back to the house. You know -- the essentials of life. I forgot to look up a Starbucks, but rare is the day that I cannot find a Starbucks without help!!

Following the map, I drove the children down the streets, onto the freeway, and into downtown Sacramento. Thankfully, there was a parking place in front of the daycare center. I pulled up, stopped the car, prepared to get out . . . but the key wouldn't come out of the slot. How can I be unable to remove the key from the key slot? Come on, come on -- two little kids in the back, waiting patiently for Grammy to rescue them from car seats, and she cannot get the key out of the ignition? Finally, I spotted an extra little button on the steering column, pushed it, and out came the key. YES!!

I was even able to get both children out of the car safely, use the codes to get into the daycare center, sign them in, find their rooms, meet their teachers/care givers, get Jon settled for his breakfast, put the bottles for Trisha into the refrigerator, and head on out. Hear a big sigh of relief here? Yep, you did!!

And then off I went to run my errands. By this time, it was 8:30, and I was getting hungry. Finding a Starbucks sounded like an amazingly wonderful inspiration, since I'd not had breakfast yet! Sadly, however, I was mucked up in one-way streets, all going the wrong way, trying to follow the directions towards Trader Joe's, trusting I'd find a Starbucks on the way. But man, oh, man, did I ever get turned around.

My family at this point would tell you that "Mom was just adventuring." Christy has been known to tell people, "Mom's a good driver, but don't go with her unless you're OK with getting lost." When the kids were little, tho, we didn't call it getting lost, we called it "adventuring."

And adventure I did -- through downtown Sacramento, round and round, past the capital building, through construction areas, and finally onto a freeway that I knew wasn't what I really wanted, but it beat the heck out of driving around any longer on one-way streets that just wouldn't go the right way.

Eventually, I got off the freeway somewhere that looked semi-familiar, drove to a Starbucks, had coffee and a bowl of their oatmeal, and felt fortified enough to head out again. I even found Trader Joe's without any wrong turns or mishaps with one-way streets.

As I checked out at Trader Joe's, I got directions to Target, my next stop. Well, it was my next planned stop. As I pulled onto the street, the car would let out an periodic "beep". I could not figure out why. I looked at the gauges: heat was fine, fuel was OK, all four doors were closed, but the beeping continued.

Looking in the rearview mirror, I realized there was a police officer behind me, and the next time I looked, it was obvious he wanted someone to stop 'cause his lights were all flashing. Could he mean ME? Why would he stop a little old lady in a chugging car? I'd really not been doing any chugging, honest, and I knew he couldn't hear the puzzling "beep" that continued to make itself heard every few seconds, which I figured out later was due to the trunk door not being totally closed.

I pulled over at the next street, with the CHP right behind me. Trying to roll down the window, I realized I had no idea how to do that. No handles to turn, and in my haste to find them, I couldn't spot the appropriate buttons or switches, so I reached over and opened the door for the CHP officer who had stopped me.

"Do you know your tags have expired, ma'am? Your registration is due in March, and you're driving on 2008 tags. You should now have 2010 tags. May I please see your license, registration, and insurance?"

Of course, I had no clue the tags weren't current. This wasn't my car. But I assured him, as I handed him my driver's license, that my daughter would have proof of insurance and registration in her glove compartment.

Reaching into her glove compartment, I had a deja vu experience: flashback to July 1994 when Neil and I had come back from Panama for a visit with Chris in San Luis Obispo where she was in college, and with David in San Diego. Chris needed something done with her tires, and as we searched her glove compartment for the paperwork on her tires, Neil and I found several unpaid parking tickets. Perhaps this was not the time to share this particular memory with the CHP guy, eh?

Thankfully, the insurance card was right on the top in the glove compartment . . . but alas, the registration was more illusive. WAIT!! There it was!!

The CHP and I both spotted the DMV envelope, and we could see something shiny, indicating the tag was still inside. After all, it was only 10 March. Technically, we had another 21 days to get the 2010 tag put on the car. And was he sure, I asked, that 2008 didn't mean she would be putting on a 2009 tag? After all, it's only March 2009, and maybe that meant the 2008 tag that Chris had on the car wouldn't run out until March 2009 -- this very month!

Patiently, the CHP informed me that things don't work that way: March 2008 means the tag expired that month . . . over a year ago. OOPS! Fully expecting that we had found the illusive tag, I pulled the registration out of the DMV envelope, only to have us both spot at the same time the fact that what I had found was the 2007 tags! Oh, my gosh! TOO LATE!

The CHP officer almost groaned aloud as he said, "You mean your daughter NEVER put on the 2007 tags, and she's been driving a year without putting on her 2009 tags?"

What could I say? I had no argument, not a leg on which to stand!

The chippie disappeared to call in to see if the registration was current, despite the lack of appropriate tags. Thankfully, it was. Twice he said, "I should send your daughter a ticket for this . . . I am really tempted to send her a ticket, ma'am. This is obviously habitual. If I don't, will you be sure she does something about this?"

I smiled sweetly at the patient young man and said, "It's your call, sir, but her father is retired Army, and he arrives tomorrow. I can promise you, those tags WILL be put on the car!"

That seemed good enough for this understanding officer of the law. I figure it was a blessing in this case to be a little old lady from Pasadena -- probably the only thing that prevented my daughter from receiving a ticket that day. In truth, I didn't wait for Christy's retired Army dad at all; I put the tags (which were on the kitchen counter) on myself as soon as I got back to the house.

But think about the irony in this: Christy drove that car illegally for an entire year and never got caught, while I drove it for less than half a day and got pulled over? How fair is that?

Of course, I immediately text messaged both Chris & Rich with, "U r in TROUBLE!" It was too great an opportunity for giving them both a really bad time!!

And now for the rest of the story, as the recently departed Paul Harvey would have said: on the way home from his conference on Thursday, Rich realized he needed to get his truck serviced. When he opened the glove compartment to get the servicing information, what do you think he found?

Yes, oh yes, he did!! He found the DMV envelope with Christy's 2009 tags in his truck!! Oh, my gosh -- they'd been there for over a year, and he'd totally forgotten.

Yep, Momma said there'd be days like this!!