Afton---Who Does That?

It wasn't all fun, just running here and there on some wild weekend, especially when Adam arrived the very last of October. There was so much more to do when there was 2 babies to take care of. Especially laundry. So when he was a week old, in the name of efficiency, I left you both with Dad, stuffed the car with all the dirty laundry that had piled up and went to the laundromat on base for a couple hours, intending to take that place over and max out on those wonderful machines. Guess that's how us girls who can't go to spas find time for ourselves. Laundromats.

On my way home when finished there, I found myself moving along in the late afternoon traffic when suddenly my little excuse of a car just flat out stopped. This vintage VW Beetle,like all the others like it, had a reserve gas tank, so you would have a couple of extra gallons on hand when it looked like you were on empty. Only thing was, ours apparently was just for looks. And seeing as the gas gauge was just one of the things that didn't work on our car, the only way to keep track of how much gas there was left was to remember when you had filled it, and then just guess wildly. So there I sat, smack middle in the street in front of the Mercedes factory that workers were just leaving for the day. The Mercedes factory. For pete's sake. Wow, did I feel popular, almost like an Ambassador for US/German relations. Those looks I got. I hung my head, and looked down at the street though the floor boards.

But just because I was floundering and didn't know what to do didn't mean the more resourceful Germans didn't. Like it was synchronized, in a flash, a few guys jumped out of their cars and lifted mine up out of the way of the street and onto the sidewalk. Before I could manage a "Danke", they were gone. So I began walking back to base, to find friends, to get gas. It took quite a humiliating while, but when I got back to the place, there sat the little blue VW, vegging on the sidewalk, snuggling with all that clean laundry.

I expect you had your hands full with the new little baby during my extended absence. Did I ever thank you for that? Remember how later, in 4th grade I think, your teacher told your class that parents would say they would be gone for 20 minutes running errands, and then show up 2 hours later. Ahh, that was just parents for you. You came home vindicated at last, taking it personally that you had inevitably been stuck babysitting beyond what was reasonable. Well, this is where it all started. The rest of the story.(Sorry, my life has never had much at all to do with reasonable. I owe you.)

I have no idea what I said when I finally got home. I just know we never ran out of gas, ever again.