One of Those Days

Thursday is preschool day here. Harry attends, Catherine goes to help out (and gets paid for her help) and I take a couple of hours off. Usually we have a complicated system of car-trading and ride-giving to get the kids there as we only have one vehicle and it goes to work with my husband but today my sister was going to work a little later and just picked us all up. We got to the daycare, my sister and Harry got out (Catherine is sick today and choose to stay with me), I got in the driver's seat and took off. A few kilometres down the road I stopped to get gas and as I turned the car off I realized, "I have no keys."

See, my sister's car will run without the keys. You can start it and then slip out the keys. And guided by force of habit my sister slipped the keys out. I drove off.

Of course though, once you turn it off it won't start without those damn keys.

Argh.

I went into the gas station and used their phone to call my sister. I got the answering machine. I left a message explaining what had happened. I had decided to walk back but the cashier took up my cause and started asking around and calling for someone to give me a ride back to the daycare. Just then the patriarch of the gas station (it's a family business) pulled up and he gave us the ride. He also gave us, in the few minutes we rode with him, a compact summary of the talents of the man that built the old school the daycare was now housed in. We pulled up just as one of the daycare workers was pulling out. I thought, "Oh no." My suspicion was confirmed when I knocked on the door and my sister answered saying, "Jody just left to take you the keys!"

The gentleman gave us a ride back and just we were about to pull in to the gas station has cell phone rang.

"That's them, calling to tell me they have the keys."

It was.

I went in and got the keys and thanked everyone. I went out to fill up the car and realized...I'd pulled up on the wrong side of the car.

All is well now. I turned the car around, filled up and came home. Through all this Catherine was quiet but when we got home we had a discussion about how helpful, kind and generous people can be.