My Husband Is A Cool Guy

And the latest example? 
A couple of Saturdays ago, I was an idiot.
We were in a rush to get out the door by 8:40. Will had a soccer game, and Wally had tutoring. I loaded Wally, Georgia and Walker in the car with not a minute to spare. Del was running right behind me to take Will to the game. I had a lot of things on my list of "to-do's" during the hour and a half that I wait for Wally. .

One of those things had been added the day before when I got ambitious and decided to touch up the paint in our basement. After making big touch up marks all over my walls, I realized that the paint was drying with a different sheen to it.  Shoot!! The paint is three year old left-overs from when we finished the basement and it had gone bad.
 I guess, that yes, paint can go bad when it freezes. And it does get mighty cold in our garage in the Winter. My thought; "hey maybe if I take it back to the store they can reshake it in their big shaking machine, and it will be fine."After all, we had almost five gallons in one of those big paint tubs. Hate to see it go to waste.

So, after getting the kiddos loaded, I put the paint in my brand new vehicle... and it tipped. Slow motion horror as I watched about a gallon of paint quickly spread over the floor of the back seat.  I begin screaming to Del in the house, "Help, help, help!!!! Paint in the car!"

I know that is very coherant, and when Del walked out the house with a handful of about three wadded up paper towels, I realized just how very bad I am in an urgent situation.

I grabbed the floor mat, which luckily had slowed the flow, turned and ran out of the garage with it.  I left a trail of destruction. Paint all over the side of the car, the floor of the car, the step, the door, the driveway, the inside of the garage, my folded up stroller sitting in the garage, and my very pretty and most favorite shoes.

I was blubbering like a baby, but had no time to stop and fall apart like I wanted to. Paint dries, ya know!?

So, instead of soccer, instead of tutoring and errands, we spent the next hour working like mad people, using every towel we own, and finally just putting the garden hose in the car and spraying it out.  Then we went to work on the driveway.  Then the garage floor, then the walls, then finally my shoes. We both had to run inside and change clothes in the middle of the chaos, because we found that once paint gets on your clothes, you tend to spread it around to new areas when you move. (Like the driver's side of the car while backing it very carefully out of the garage to avoid getting paint on the wheels.) I made a very embarrassing call to the Learning Center to ask to reschedule Wally last minute. I couldn't even think of anything to say except the truth. The nice girl said something like, " Oh, of course don't worry about it, sounds like you are kind of living a nigtmare right now, you can call me back."

And so, after the panick subsided, I looked wearily at my husband and said , " I am so sorry."

And he is just cool. He put his arms around me, smiled and said, "It's okay, worse will probably happen to this car over the next twenty or so years that we own it."

He is not one to get fixated on "things." Bless his heart.

Now on to the "It Could Have Been So Much Worse If's...."

It had happened in the dead of Winter. No hose, snow, cold. Shudder.
It had happend while Del wasn't home.
It had happened in the hardware store parking lot instead of at home. Shudder.
It had happened while I was driving.
My kids had not been contained in seat belts.
My husband wasn't such a nice guy.

By the way. The car is fine. There is a finger print that a friend pointed out on the side of the gear shift thing that we missed. I could work on it, but maybe I won't. It is a reminder that material things in this life come and go. It is easy to make them our "idols."  It is a reminder that we are all human and make mistakes. It is a reminder to slow down and make sure the proverbiale "lid is on the paint."

But most of all, it is a reminder of why I love Del so much. And how I am lucky that he loves me. 

More than his car.