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Wow, I have had a lot of Mondays but I think this one takes the cake. I started my day with plans to meet my SIL in Kearney and pick up some trucks she bought me for the triplets for Christmas from the after Thanksgiving sale at Cabelas. We are loaded in the suburban and head out of town, it's 7 degrees with a -15 wind chill and thankfully my heater works great. That is until we run out of gas 13 miles outside of town. My gas gage does not work so I have to keep track of mileage. Apparently whenever the tank was filled last it was either not fully filled or the mileage had been reset at some point because I can go for 305 miles and we were only at 217. My plans were to fill up in Ansley. Instead my husband who was not so happy to receive a call brought us gas. We sat at the side of the road and not one person stopped for just over twenty minutes. I don't blame them, in today's world you never know who you are going to encounter and that is so sad we have come to such a world. Well, no one that is until the Custer Public Power truck that was going down the road literally gelled up right next to me. One of the guys gets out and walks across the road to make sure everything is OK and I have help coming. I say "yes, we just misread the gas gage". It happens to be two guys Justin ropes with and they wanted to make sure the kids were warm offering to get them in their truck and bringing us gigantic Carhart coats. I tell him we are OK so far and they wait across the road with us till Justin comes and then we both continue on our way.
We get to Kearney and I plan to go through the Wendy's drive thru - they have an awesome dollar menu - and then head to the mall and let the kids play at the train table. While waiting in line I see the cars in front of me spinning out on ice so I kick my burb into 4 wheel and go forward, place my order. I hear "that will be $17.43, please drive forward". I shift into drive and the burb dies. I try to start it again and it will turn over, but not stay started. It is 12:30 and I have a line up of cars behind me! I tell the lady, "I don't know what to do, my suburban just died in you drive thru". So two guys come out to push me out of the way. They can not get the burb to budge and the lady says " I am sending so and so out to help you". They reply "OK, have him bring the rock salt". So they dump a can of rock salt behind the burb and all three start pushing. The burb is still not inching forward and I thought that's weird they should be able to get it to move a little. I look down and forgot it was still in 4 wheel drive!!! Oh my gosh, I felt horrible! I reached up pushed it into 2 wheel heard a little click and we jolted forward. From the back I hear "sweet it finally broke free!" I never told them what happened. I felt so bad. So they push me over to the side and I call a tow truck. It will be 30 mins so we go inside to get the food we ordered so long ago. I still haven't called to tell Justin for fear of him jumping through the phone. We all go to the bathroom, eat, and my phone rings. The tow truck is here so we pile into his cab and head to the Chevy dealer to find out what our next move is. After sitting in the waiting room until 4:30 and two walks around the parking lot in freezing temps because the kids are going stir crazy the man finally comes out and says "Ma'am your vehicle is ready". I walk into the waiting room again and smell a wonderful latte smell. I have to have all four kids sit at my feet while I write the $298.00 check because they are basically playing leap frog. In the end it was not because of being out of gas, it was a cam shaft sensor that was going out and it finally went out in Kearney. While writing I say "wow, someones latte smells wonderful". She says "oh, it's from our coffee machine". I said oh, how much is that. She says "well, they are free for our customers". I looked up at her and said "I have been here for three and a half hours and you have free lattes?!" I think I scared her. I said come on kids lets go, I didn't even put their coats on. The car was warm from the heated shop, so I put their buckles on, went in and got the gifts my SIL dropped off, and then went back in with my clean empty coffee mug that had yet to be filled for the day and filled it to the brim with a wonderful hot free chai tea. And that was the best thing that happened all day. We finally made it home and through numbness I unwrapped all the kids gifts and took them back to the stores while Justin read them stories to go to bed. If we make it through December...