Pains, Trains, and Automobiles
on Aug 21 in General by Dan3:30pm: Dan and Amy set off for home after an enjoyable day spent together at a local community farm. Dan intends to drive the 20 miles back to the village, pick Evan up from nursery, then take both him and Amy to grandparents where they will be spending the night.
3:35: Dan and Amy become ensnared in a particularly nasty traffic jam.
4:00: Dan and Amy still ensnared in a particularly nasty traffic jam.
4:30: Dan and Amy still in traffic jam. Dan begins to worry he won’t be able to make it back to pick up Evan on time. Rings Kerry.
4:35: Kerry leaves work early and catches train home.
4:50: Kerry’s train is delayed.
5:00: Kerry’s train is still delayed. Kerry begins to worry that she wont get back to town in time to catch her connecting train to the village. Dan and Amy still ensnared in a particularly nasty traffic jam.
5:15: Dan and Amy desert the traffic jam and go to Ikea, reasoning that if they have to be trapped in an infuriating claustrophobic mass of humanity they might as well be able to look at furniture at the same time. They buy and then eat reasonably priced scandinavian hot dogs.
5:45: Dan and Amy rejoin the traffic jam. Kerry has missed her connecting train and so gets a taxi back to the village.
6:10: Kerry picks up Evan from nursery. Is charged a fine for a member of staff having to stay behind with him after closing time. Kerry makes offhand comment about things not being able to get much worse.
6:30: Kerry is feeling flustered about getting Evan to grandparents before bedtime. Fills up car with petrol prior to setting off for their house. Car makes funny noises. Kerry remembers that the car actually takes diesel rather than petrol. Rings breakdown service.
6:33: Dan and Amy still in traffic jam. Dan receives a phone call from Kerry telling him that she has just put petrol in their diesel car. Dan swears and regrets taking the piss out of a work colleague when he did the same thing earlier this year.
6:35: Grandad sets off in order to collect Evan from Kerry while she waits for the breakdown service to arrive.
7:00: Dan and Amy arrive at Grandparents house.
7:15: Breakdown service takes Kerry and car to local garage. Mechanic tuts through his teeth and makes “it’s going to cost you” noises. Breakdown service give Kerry a lift home
7:20: Granddad and Evan arrive at Grandparents house.
7:30: Dan sets of for home.
8:00: Dan arrive at home. Dan and Kerry abandon previous plans to go to the cinema and watch V for Vendetta on dvd instead. They quite enjoy it.
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I’m sorry you missed a night out, but a night in is always nice too.
Was this traffic jam on the M62 by any chance? I missed my dentist appointment and had to abandon the motorway (via the hard shoulder). I was swearing too…
It certainly was. Two lanes were out apparently. I vowed never to travel on the bloody thing again.
Grandma & Grandad got caught in the overspill from the traffic jam and took 50 minutes to do 20 minute journey – minor really I suppose. However, everything balances out in the end and we enjoyed having the children over and the adventure in pyjamas and slippers to buy dummies at bedtime.
Wow – that’s not a good day at all… how does it always manage to all happen at the same time?
Stop. You are causing me unwanted stress. Clearly the rule regarding parents planning a night out only to have outside factors nix those plans was fully in play for you.
Our last “date night” was squashed by the vomit of our 2 year old.
Better luck next time.
Hahaha petrol. Peeeeetrol. Petrooooooool.
Petrolllllllll. Hahaha. Petrol sounds funny. Oh yeah, sorry you had such a crappy day Dan.
petrol.
Henri -I have used the word petrol in my next post purely for your entertainment. i hope you enjoy it.
Oh I further request:
wonky
Damn I ran out of funnythingsbrits say. I could have sworn I had a giant list. Crap I’m going to have to start writing things down.
It’s a hilarious language you guys speak, what do you call it again? Oh right, English.
My week didn’t get much better – I was poorly, Evan’s now not right and for a half an hour yesterday, I thought my car was broken too. Turned out to be a stone chipping caught by the brake disc but it made a horrendous scraping-metal noise.
Good things however – my boss is making me take the day off on Tuesday to get some me time and the car ‘only’ came to £100. The mechanic kept telling me that “you don’t know how lucky you were” that I’d turned the engine off so quickly.
Henri – if you like wonky, how about skew-whiff?