what do you do when this happens

Of course I've thought about it happening. I've envisioned how it would happen and what I might do. I've considered that I should devise a plan if it happened, just to be prepared. Well, it happened and I had no plan, no diagram to show me what to do.

This morning I woke up with a headache thinking, as I do every morning before my coffee, that I just want to get back in bed, I want to call in sick. But, I never do call in sick. I turn on the coffee maker, get dressed, fix lunch and when the coffee is ready I begin sipping it while quietly saying a prayer that my empty stomach will except the legal stimulate and take it straight to my brain. This morning, the coffee couldn't work fast enough and the headache required 2 ibuprofen. Praying to the over-the-counter drug gods that the medicine too would go straight to my brain, I began looking for my keys. I couldn't find them and my head hurt too much to search really hard. So I grabbed the spare set with it's spare car key, spare car remote clicker thing, and spare apartment key. The clicker thing was the slightly used one I had traded for the unused one a few months ago thinking that the battery in it had run it’s course. It's a sad little keychain with only the three danglers, but it would have to do, I was running late.

It was a wet morning and this time I remembered my spare umbrella in case the heaven's opened up on me as I went from school to school. I stepped out of my apartment, coffee in hand and as I approached my car, the spare clicker wasn't working. I figured its tiny battery was in fact dead and opened the driver's side door with my key. I then tried to manually unlock the rear doors by using the power unlock button on the driver side door (I know, not really manually). Nothing happened. I was confused. I hopped in, put my bags on the passenger seat, set my coffee in its holder and put the key in the ignition. Upon turning it, I got nothing. I mean nothing, not even the usual piddily sound the altenater makes when it’s trying to charge the battery when in fact the battery is dead. All signs were pointing to a dead battery, but no noise, that was strange. I was confused and then remembered how the ignition had been acting funny the last few days.

Here is where I needed the plan and had none. I first said a quick thank you to God that I was a support teacher and did not have a classroom full of kids waiting on me and then a bit of panic set in. What do you when you are almost late for work as it is and everyone you know is probably at work already. I called my brother, he had to take the kids to school and even if he could get me to work I couldn’t travel to my other schools and I'd have to take care of the car today anyway. So, I had to call in. I was getting my early morning wish, but really, this was not the way I had wanted it. Having no plan I couldn’t figure out how to call in: Do I call in sick or is this personal business? Do I call in for a half day and hope my brain clears and I figure out how to get to school for the last half of the day? Who can help me? How long with AAA take?

I ended up calling in for the whole day. Car troubles have notoriously taken whole days before so I thought I would play it safe and not confuse the day even more by having to try to get to school by a certain time. It all worked out. The dealership was able to (expensively) fix everything by the end of the day and I can go to school easily and safely again. I'm just wondering, do you have a plan if it happens to you?