//blog/the archives
Stolen ATMs and a Trip to the E.R.
posted on: 2008-06-20 at 7:21:00 PM
This has truly been one of the strangest weeks I've experienced in a long time.Monday was setting up nicely, my good friend Erin was visiting her family from Hawaii, and we had planned a morning date to catch up and to show off our kids (where mine is seventeen months and hers has gestated for just over twelve weeks). I was really looking forward to sharing stories of pregnancy, and babies in general. Also, I just wanted to catch up. She is an exceptional woman. Plans got changed, so I ended up spending most of my Monday working on various projects around the house .
So we shot for Tuesday. The plan was for me to pick her up from Gresham (which is like 20 miles from where I live). I went out that morning to grab some breakfast when I realized the grinding sound the brakes on my car were making stopped being annoying -- and started being impossibly horrific. Not only were the brakes scaring bystanders within a block radius, the car couldn't stop without my compensating steering left. Yikes. It sounded like something was tearing through metal. Needless to say, plans changed as I limped over to my mom and dad's w/ Oliver in-tow.
As most Ford Focus owners are aware, their brakes suck. My dad is an engineer / car expert so I always admire his help when I have something to do that involves removing pieces of my car.
As we start to work on the car, the local news van pulls up and asks to interview my dad. The short version is this: Thieves stole an ATM, broke it open, stole the cash, and dumped it in my parent's back yard. WTF? The news had done a report about it the night before, but only video-taped shots of the yard and the ATM -- no interviews. Today, they wanted to get dad on camera and ask a few questions. The rest is history:
So, $90 a news interview, and a few hours of being a grease monkey later, my car has fresh new brakes, a repaired tail light, and a repaired rear seat-belt locking mechanism. The inner Hamm's drinking car mechanic in me was happy (but also broke).
Next day -- everything seems fine. Oliver has been a little terror, however. He WILL NOT go down for his naps without screaming like a rabid hyena. Thank goodness for visual baby-monitors, headphones, and internet radio. About 4pm, I get a call from my brother-in-law, Paul. He was a little "off" to say the least -- but I gathered something happened that involved a table saw and his thumb. I live fairly close by, so I figured it would take him to the E.R. I grabbed the kidd-o, some food and a few toys and headed out. When I got to his house, my sister had just arrived from work, so the four of us were able to make it to the hospital pretty quickly.
Paul was admitted and taken to a room. He cut his thumb pretty badly, and was in a LOT of pain. Oliver fared well. He was boisterous throughout the stay, but overall behaved admirably -- and accepted stickers from a female nurse named Mercedes (who, by the way has never seen License to Drive -- which for a girl with her name to have never seen is a sin in my book).We all left. Paul's thumb was damaged pretty heavily, but whose prognosis is good. They stapled it back shut and said it should fully heal and be functional.
In other news: I'm still jobless -- but I have a great lead that I am pretty sure will become my new career here shortly. I won't speak much about it until it actually happens. Karma can be a bitch sometimes.
posted by Carl
3 Comments: [ Post a comment ]
christine said...
I love Oliver's facial expression during the interview. Classic.
Posted: June 23, 2008 7:57 AM
said...
OMG your always into something and something is always happening with you OLIVER has gotten soooo big he's still adorable miss you big time you crazy man
Posted: June 24, 2008 11:48 AM
Danae said...
i already knew about all this before it even happened.
Posted: June 24, 2008 11:53 AM
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