Something to NOT Do: Catch Your Car On Fire

Hi everyone.

I had a very interesting weekend. Actually, it was pretty normal until about 10 PM last night.

You see, this is what happened: My friend and I were off to another friend’s house with the goal of watching movies and making silly videos all night. It was dark and incredible snowy, and I had a car that was not very well suited to the weather conditions. Needless to say, the two of us got stuck on a hill and ended up overheating my engine. After getting off of said hill, I noticed we were low on gas, so, luckily, my friend new someone who lived nearby and thought they might have some gas we could borrow to make it to the next town. As soon as we got out of the car, I noticed the hood was billowing smoke. I also noticed something that made my stomach drop: what looked like an ember from a fire was on my car. When I went to pull it off, I noticed that the hood of my car was melting.

What subsequently followed was, naturally, calling 911. The woman whose drive way we pulled into was on it, while their neighbor brought over a fire extinguisher to try and control the flames burning from the hood of my car. I called my family, and my friend grabbed what he could from the car. The flames kept growing stronger and stronger though, and the man had to give up the fight against the fire with the extinguisher. For the next ten minutes until the fire department got there, I watched my car become engulfed in flames.

Luckily, we are both okay and there was nothing terribly valuable in the car. It was still a terrifying experience that I would never recommend for anyone. I’m still stressed about it, but I’m sure that will fade in time. What I did take out of this though, is that it’s a really good time to be thankful and to just tell everyone I love how much I do love them, because near death experiences tend to make you see the brighter side of things more often than not.

I know I’ve complained about my more frequent than not car troubles on here before, and I have to say I am officially done with cars for a while. They stress me out.

I’m glad to be here still.

I’m glad you’re here.

Uħibbak, all of you.

Sarah.

A Lament Mostly About Cars and Gas Stations But Also Including Southern Cooking

Have you ever just had one of those nights where things don’t want to go right for you?

Yeah, that happened to me tonight, mostly with my car. Now, I’m a gigantic fan of cars and all; they’re nice for getting places and doing things. But when they don’t want to cooperate, they are just downright annoying useless pieces of machinery. Can I get an amen from the congregation?

Anyway, what brought me upon this topic was my car being a particularly annoying piece of machinery tonight. Actually, it was more or less the absent mindedness of the owner and also the stupid gas stations that the car was attempting to be filled up at. I have to make a weekly trek to a town nearby called Brookville to go to my violin lesson (more on that later) and every time I go my mom usually asks me to fill up gas for her. Today, she asked me to go to Country Fair to get a gas card and use that to pay, but I didn’t know how to do that and didn’t leave early enough to have time, so I thought I’d make it quick and just stop at Flying J. So I pull in there, pull up to the gas pump and put in all my information and that good stuff, but when I pull out the nozzle to fill up my tank, the pump nozzle does not want to fit into the hole! I kid you not, I sat there for five minutes looking like an idiot trying to shove that thing in there before finally giving up and driving to my lesson. I thought, what the heck, I’ll just go to Country Fair after the lesson and get the gas card. Feeling brave, was I.

So I go to my lesson and it’s all fine and dandy. Once I got out I went right on over to Country Fair to get that gas card. I go in, enter my mom’s pin number on her debit card, get the gas card, and I’m thinking things are going fine now. Boy was I wrong. The dumb lady didn’t put any of the money onto the gas card, and dumb me didn’t realize after fifteen minutes of attempting to use the gas card that I should just go back inside and ask her about it. Needless to say, I was very frustrated and just used normal money to pay, which was apparently not the brightest idea. Sigh.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, my highway drive home just added to my bad time. For starters, I pulled into the highway ramp for those getting off the highway, and only noticed when I saw a big truck pulling off and driving right my way. I nearly had a heart attack. Obviously I am still alive (I was not hit and did not have a full on heart attack) but I am still very flustered right now from that. Oh, and then when I actually get on the highway, this trucker nearly hits me a couple times and keeps trying to pass me while he’s in the right lane and I’m trying to get to my exit. I had to speed up to 90 mph and swerve around in front of him to barely make it to the exit I was going to.

Alright. I’m done now. I just feel like most people can empathize with car/highway/gas station troubles, even if a couple of them were my fault. I guess that’s my adventure for the day.

On a lighter note, my friend and I today were talking about how delicious southern cooking was, and it reminded me of a particular southern food that I am really in the mood for right now: jambalaya. Being born in Alabama to a very long lineage of southerners and raised in Mississippi, I would say that their cuisine is pretty much flowing in my blood. All I have to say is for once, I am happy that WalMart is a national chain and stocks not only food you’d eat anywhere else but also southern staples, such as grits or okra. Over the years I’ve made most of my friends try southern cuisine, and most haven’t liked it, but I guarantee that no matter who you are you would probably like jambalaya. Because I am too lazy to look up our family recipe for it, I am just going to link to Emeril Lagasse’s Cajun Jambalaya: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/cajun-jambalaya-recipe2/index.html. You cannot go wrong with Emeril, so I thought it was pretty fool proof. Sounds tasty to me.

I’m glad we got that off on a good note, and I really hope whoever reads this will put some thought into trying the jambalaya, or a similar recipe. And also, thank you for listening to my car/highway/gas station rant. It was appreciated, believe me.

So until next time, go out there and have a couple adventures.

Sarah.