The Worst Day EVER!

Yesterday started out pretty well. My friend, Deborah, came over with her two little boys. We hung out most of the day and had a great time. A couple of hours after she left, Brandon finally got home from work, late. He set his things down with a long sigh and turned to me and said, "You will not believe what happened." He proceeded to tell me about the series of unfortunate events that lead to the final disaster. I had noticed that he had forgotten both his work cell phone and his personal cell phone, as well as his wallet, when he left for work that morning. So, when he ran out of gas just over a mile from our place, he had to walk to a gas station to try to call me to find a ride over to bring his wallet to him. The employee at the gas station was kind enough to let him use the phone behind the counter, as long as it would be a local call. Well, it would have been a local call if Brandon had ever taken the time to learn our home phone number. With only my Florida cell phone number readily available in his memory, he was not permitted to make the call to me. He walked all the way home, hoping that he would be able to get a hold of one of our friends to take him back to get the car. When he told me what had happened, I thought it was unfortunate, but more of an inconvenience than anything else...until he told me where the car was: in the TURN LANE with the hazards on! Apparently, with the rush hour traffic and the particular place he broke down at, it was next to impossible to push it off the road and into a parking lot. We immediately started calling everyone we could think of to come help. Of course, 98% of the people we called were out of town through Memorial Day. Brandon finally lucked out when Ben Miller answered and said that he was, in fact, home and available to come to the rescue. He didn't waste any time picking Brandon up and taking him back to the scene of the mishap. "Cari! It's the worst case scenario! The car is GONE," Brandon exclaimed over the phone as soon as he got there. I got off the phone so I could call the police, while Brandon tried to figure out what happened. A little while later he called me back to tell me that he flagged down a tow truck driver to see if he knew anything about it. Sure enough, he worked for the company that had picked it up. So, they headed over to the impound lot to see if they could rescue my little car before it was too late. Brandon explained to the guys there what had happened and pleaded with them to release the car, even though the office had closed at 4:30, about an hour before they picked up the car, but they wouldn't budge, refusing to help. Thankfully, Ben was extremely generous and loaned us his vehicle for the night, so we could use it to go get the car first thing in the morning. This morning, when we went in to get it, the guy that released it to us, who happened to be one of the ones Brandon had spoken with the night before, said, "Oh, I just found out that I could have released the car to you last night. At least I know that for future reference." Seriously??? Did he think that was going to make us feel better? I was about ready to reach across the counter and strangle him! Anyway, one stressful night, one two-gallon gas can, and $200 later, we got our car back. I know I should be looking on the bright side and be grateful that it wasn't worse (ie: car being stolen or totaled by some overly-aggressive Baltimore driver), but this one is going to take me a while to get over. Someday I'll look back at this and laugh...today is not that day.