Story Time

Mase is taking his first nap in weeks, and I just remembered I haven't gotten a chance to tell the story of My Worst Day Ever.

It happened last week. I went to Lock Haven to get a TB test so I can student teach in the fall. I loaded Mase in the car and drove the 40 minutes to Lock Haven University. The drive was fairly uneventful, and when we were just about there I smelled something... strange... coming from the back seat. I pulled into a gas station - I was almost on empty anyway.

I turn the car off, start pumping gas, and go back to check on Mason. Oh.my.gosh. There are my babies (Mason AND my brand new car), covered in vomit. Now, I've always considered myself extremely lucky that Mase was never a thrower-uper. He only spit up a handful of times in his infancy and I'm thankful every day because I don't do well with vomit. At all. So I grab Mason by his armpits, hold him straight out in front of me, and haul him into the gas station. The woman looks at me with a sympathetic eye and points to the bathroom. I strip him down to his diaper, rinse him off in the sink, dry him under the automatic hand drier and carry him back out to the car where I scrape the puke out of his seat and line it with a plastic bag.

I plop him down and strap him in. He's still naked and smelly but I'm not really worried about it because we just have to drive up the road and get this test - ten minutes, tops. I get in and try to blow in my breathalyzer (yes, the result of two DUIs. My car won't start until it's sure I'm sober). Nothing. The damn thing won't even turn on. I try at least twenty times until I'm out of breath and panicking... then I call Bruce the Breathalyzer Installer.

By then, I'm freaking out, gasping to Bruce about a naked, sick baby and a car stuck at a gas pump. He assures me over and over again that he'll be there to rescue me as soon as he can. I tell the gas station woman that I'll be back soon but I have to leave my car at the pump and, even though her sympathetic eye is now clearly annoyed, she says it's okay. I put my hoodie on Mason and the two of us start walking down the road, him swimming in my sweatshirt and me wearing a tanktop in 35 degree weather. We stop at a Burger King where everyone stares. I call my mom and try to explain what happened between tears and bites of my Double Whopper with Cheese. And old couple in the booth next to us hears what's going on and offers us a ride.

They take us to Walmart, where I dress Mason in the baby section and play with him in the toy aisles. I call Bruce numerous times to check on his status... each time he assures me he'll be on his way soon. Meanwhile, back at the gas station, Sympathetic Eye Woman is calling a tow truck.

To make a long story of boredom really short - SIX HOURS after I had stopped at the gas station, Bruce comes to save the day, only moments before the tow truck arrives. Five minutes after he gets there, my breathalyzer's fixed and I'm on my way. Worst day ever.

Oh, and Lock Haven couldn't do my TB test on account of me not currently being a student there.