While I’m recovering from my mystery illness, I have been fortunate to get a few guest posters to help me fill my calendar. This gal here, from A God-Blessed Life is a favorite blogger of mine so I’m really excited she is being featured today!
As we know, whatever can go wrong will go wrong during a deployment. Here’s another tragically funny in retrospect tale from a deployment.
DH deployed several years ago, his first deployment, but my second time playing role of Mom and Dad while also transitioning from Active Duty to my new role as a Reservist and Stay-at-Home Mom. However, after hearing horror stories from so many other MilSpouses- all relating to how the crap hits the fan when hubbies deploy, I was still unprepared.
The day he left, I was driving his truck back home. Kiddo was in the car seat in the back seat. The windows were down. It was a beautiful Hawaii day. The beauty of the day seemed out of place as the lump in my throat threatened to make my eyes water again. As I neared the BX, I decided I should stop. I needed a new battery for my watch after all, and the distraction would be good for me. (Kiddo was still too young to understand why leaving Daddy at the terminal this time was so different from TDY’s he had gone on previously.)
Kiddo and I went into the BX. They did not sell the battery needed for my watch. Figured. I decided to buy the Kiddo a new Hot Wheels car, and we headed back out to the truck. I unlocked the doors, and tried to start the truck to turn on the a/c while I loaded the Kiddo into his seat.
I jumped straight in the air, and Kiddo immediately started wailing in my arms as the truck’s alarm unexpectedly went off, and I could not turn it off!
I put the still wailing Kiddo in his car seat, then I played with the key fob. The alarm was still going off. Nothing I did turned it off.
Thinking the key fob’s battery might be dead, which of course is the same type of battery many watches use, I retrieved the Kiddo, and hoofed it back into the BX, with the alarm still blaring behind me. As I walked across the parking lot, I noticed a Police Car, with two SP’s sitting in it, sitting to the side of the lot. Thinking I would be able to resolve the problem, I gave the watching SP’s little thought.
Inside the BX, the jewelry attendant helped me find the right battery. Yay! They have one! We put it in the key fob, and I booked it back out to the truck with the Kiddo was still wailing in my ears. (Loud noises drive the Kiddo bonkers!)
As we neared the truck, I stretched out my hand, just knowing the new battery had solved the problem.
I pushed the button.
Once.
Twice.
Three, four, five, six… Oh! Man!
The key fob battery was not the problem!!!
An hour and half later, in mid-afternoon Hawaiian heat and humidity, several dozen phone calls and texts to people I hoped could help me without having to call for a tow truck, a friend suggested I unplug the truck battery, clean the connectors, and reset the truck’s computer.
Well… that worked!
The best part?
As I pulled away from the parking lot drenched in sweat and dying of embarrassment with the Kiddo finally passed out in the back seat after crying himself to sleep, I noticed the two SP’s sitting in their car at the edge of the parking lot. In that moment, I realized how long I had been in that parking lot tinkering with the truck with its alarm blaring, and not a single customer, AD member, or those SP’s offered to lend a hand.
So while good Samaritans clearly no longer exist, if they ever did, I suppose I should be happy that at least it wasn’t raining that day.
Link: http://www.agod-blessedlife.com
