I need a break!!!

So today officially SUCKED.

I had barely 24 hours of freedom with my own vehicle before the van died.  Frank was kind enough to wake me up at 1 a.m. to inform me of this situation.  Why? No one knows.  I mean, really?  Was I supposed to get up and fix the darn thing?  All he managed to do was to wake me up and make me worry.  Luckily Nick was working today so I just borrowed his car to run my errands.

Oh...the errands.

In a nutshell, follow the craziness...
1.  Went to town hall to pay my electric and water bill.  Dropped them in the drop box.  
2.  Went by the mechanic to see about a battery he was checking on for us.  It was the one that came with the van but didn't work.  It was bad.  This left us in a pinch because when the van died last night, it was battery/alternator related.  Frank told me that I needed to go home and pull the battery out of the van and have it tested.  This battery is from the van that has no transmission and we used the battery from it when we couldn't get the new van running on Monday.  Right, because I am known for my engine repair skills, I'll get right on that.
3.  Went to the auto part store to pick up an alternator

It was all down hill from there.

When I got home, there was a truck parked out front from the town.  They were shutting off our power.  I'm like "WHAT??  I JUST PAID THE BILL!"  Keep in mind that I have lived in this town, in this house for 15 years.  I have paid my electric bill on the 18th for as long as I could remember.  Apparently, they have changed the way that they are doing things (including the billing cycle) and so my due date is no longer my due date and they will no longer be issuing notices to let you know that you are about to be turned off.  So now I have no electricity and no idea when it will be turned back on.  Fabulous.  

I get in the car and call Frank, ready to cry and he's like "I knew you were freakin going to call me about this" (meaning, the battery).  And he had a "tone" that just threw me over the edge.  There was much yelling and venting (on my part) and I reminded him that I am NOT a mechanic and for somebody who cannot do a load of laundry without my holding his hand, how DARE he get pissy about me not being able to remove the dang battery!  I explained all that happened with the electric bill and he's like "So?"  Sure, no big deal for him.  He is somewhere that there is ELECTRICITY!!  We argued about the rules and whatnot and then got back to the battery issue.  I'm like, I am not doing this.  I have no idea what the tools look like that I need and really, his workbench is a mess.  He tells me (quite emphatically) how organized his tools are.  

Really?  That's your argument here, your tools are organized and therefore I should be able to remove the battery.  And you know, just to be clear, it's not that I couldn't do the job, I'm sure that once I found the tools, I could have done it.  It was the arrogance and the demand that I do it that pissed me off.  When I am in crisis, I do not get that kind of quick-service, jump up and "Let me get that for you, honey" like he is demanding from me.  Truth be known, I told him Monday night to get the alternator and put it in.  I had the auto part store on the phone HOLDING one for us.  But no, what do I know?  Now, because of his refusal to listen, we killed a second battery that we had to buy.  That's $100 I'll never see again.  Thanks for listening, sweetheart!

I get home and Nick is like "Well?  Did you pay the bill?" and honestly, I just broke down. I cried like I have not cried in years!  I curled up on the bed in the fetal position and just bawled for a while.

In the meantime, my son, in the ultimate act of generosity, walked outside, called his father and pulled the battery himself.  My hero!  We dropped that battery off at the mechanic, dropped Nick off at work, drove in to Raleigh to Sears to exchange some socket wrench thing that needed to be replaced, drove to where Frank was working because he had my car and I needed my phone charger from it (since I had no freakin electricity, and my phone was about to die, it was my only option), put gas in Nick's car, shopped at Target and then grabbed myself some lunch and was prepared to eat it in the silence of my home.

I got back here, sat down, pulled out the laptop and put a DVD in and after one bite of my chicken sandwich, I saw the guy from the town go by the window to turn the power back on!  YEAH!!  By now the mechanic called to say that battery number two is bad and we'll need another one.  I call five different places to get the best price on a battery, wait for Michael to get home, go pick up the battery (after getting the old one from the mechanic to trade in), head home, work on some freelance articles that I had due today, went shopping for items for our Operation Christmas Child shoe box, picked Nick up from work, came home, finished the freelance articles and ordered Chinese food.

I am mentally whipped.