2.23.2011

Wednesday's adventure.

You know those days. The days where you should have just stayed in bed. Yesterday was such a grand adventure for us.
I had terrible nightmares all night. Ones where David was dead.
I woke up with a fat swollen eye, thanks to a recurring sty. Adam picked me up for school while David stayed in town to do some business. When I got to school I had forgotten my keys and the internet device. So no getting into the office and no internet. The teachers loved me for that.
While I was teaching my eye started to throb, itch and run. It made the hour seem really long.
So far the day wasn't going too bad, it was just inconvenient. By three pm, we were heading home and I was exhausted from not sleeping the previous night thanks to dead husband dreams. I decided not to go to my work-out class, but to go to a movie instead. We needed the relaxation time. 
So when we are about ready to leave we hear a loud banging on our front door. It scared the daylights out of me. We have a gate that locks and a barbed wire fence. There is no way anyone could get to our front door. We cautiously looked out the window and saw our neighbor's, who is also our landlord's daughter, dog stuck between our gate and door.
There is no way this dog made it into our yard without help. The entire fence is made of barbed wire. There is no hole in the wall, or under the fence. It is still a mystery how it got into our yard. We spent half an hour trying to get a hold of either our landlord, or her daughter. Edda finally answered and said that we could just leave him in our yard until she got home, but to be careful because he likes to get out and run in the street. So we tied a rope onto his leash, and David backed the car out while I held onto him. Then we closed the gate while David went back in and untied the rope so he could run free in our yard. Then David slowly inched the gate open to squeeze out, and the dog pushed him out of the way (almost running his face into the barbed wire) and shot into the street. I jumped and tried to catch him, and David took off after him. It was too late, he was in the street and under a car before we could do anything.
It was a sickening thud.
The lady jumped out of her car, (which is now badly damaged) and started apologizing profusely. The dog was yelping and crying, when David tried to pick him up he tried to bite David. The dog did not seem too badly injured as he jumped up and took off AGAIN! This time he ran straight for out landlord's house and squeezed under her gate.
Her granddaughter came out, and I has to warn her that the dog was hurt and bleeding all over. (It looked like his hind leg was badly hurt and bleeding).
The little girl said that she would go get her grandmother and disappeared into the house. Cue the rain!  It started to POUR! We waited for 15 minutes for anyone to come out of the house when the landlord's son drove up, we told him what happened and he told us they have a problem with the dog, and that there was nothing else we could do.
So off we go on our "relaxing date in the middle of a crazy week." Ha!
When we got in the car I felt like my purse was missing, but thought I probably left it in the house so we left without it.
We made it to the movie in time, halfway through the bulb in their projector burned out. We listened to quite a big part of the movie ;)
When we left at nine, the parking lot was deserted, and it was raining softly. We could tell when we got to our car that something was amiss. The alarm was not responding. We got in and David turned the key.
Nothing.
The car was dead. Super dead. Deader than a doorknob.
We had left the lights on.
We spent about 20 minutes walking around asking the few people who were still at the mall if anyone could give us a jump, but of course no one had jumper cables.
We ended up calling Jodie and Patrick, Patrick came out with his car and jumper cables.
We would be home in no time!
The guys hooked up the cables and David turned the keys and....
Nothing. Nothing but a sickening clicking.
Cue the rain! This time the Heavens opened up with a new kind of fury. It was raining so hard the parking lot was flooding, and lightning was flashing all around us. They tried everything. But our car just would not start.
By this time we are the only people in the parking lot so we were able to push it the wrong way on a one way street. I tried to be the "key turner" while the boys pushed. Then we swapped. I jumped out to help push, so Patrick who knew the trick could be the "key turner."
I stepped into water up past my ankles, with the flood gates still dumping on us. We pushed and pushed and the car just gave a few weak coughs. This went on for a while. Until we were soaked and shivering. (Patrick then noticed he had an umbrella!!)
At this point it was getting close to 10pm, we thanked Patrick and told him he could go home, nothing was helping!!
We then called Adam, who had been at home looking for a towing company.
Note that we could not just leave the car in the lot, Namibia is not the safest country. We could not afford to buy a new car if this one is stolen or damaged.
Adam informed us that there was no towing company to be found, and that he was on his way. (We later found out that he had been throwing up when we called. The Wrights are still struggling with this bug that is going around).
Adam made it, and we tried to jump our car with his, but again nothing. It was still raining though!
We decided to try and have him tow us home. The boys got the cars hooked up, and then David walked around to me with something wet and limp in his hands. MY PURSE!
I had put it down on the winch when we were trying to contain the dog, and left it there! It stayed on for the ride to the mall, was not taken by anyone even though it sat in the parking lot for several hours, and had enjoyed us pushing it around in the rain. It was sopping wet. How funny is that?!
I am not usually such a scatter brain.
So there we went, hooked up to Adam's car. It was pretty tense, as we did not have power steering, or power brakes, or any kind of lights. We set off in the dark and rain. Our biggest fear was running into the back of Adam. We stayed under 20km an hour, and there were only a few jerks.
I am pretty impressed by how well Adam and David did.
We finally got home, and after pushing that monster of a car up hill into the drive way we were able to get out of the rain!
But wait!
The rain had flooded our living room!
We stepped into the living room puddle, in our soaking wet clothes.
Hilarious.
When I started squeegeeing the floor I noticed a spider nest on the curtain with eggs in it!
We finally got to bed past 11pm, cold, wet and with the sound of crunching spider eggs in our ears.

I think next time I want to skip my work-out class I will remember what happens to people who skip their work-outs! Today we also learned what it means to say "When it rains, it pours!"


I will update on how the dog is doing when we find out. This morning there was no movement on their side.

4 comments:

Kayla Olson said...

OMG! ahhaha what a day!

The Echols said...

I know right! It was crazy. Good job reading through that wall of text.

Jenny said...

What a terrible day Sandy! poor doggy :( I hope he's ok. I'm glad you two made it through that day safely, wow so crazy!

Stephen and Alisa said...

Oh my gosh! That is horrible! So crazy!