It could have been worse...........

If I'd written this post on Friday night, or even Saturday morning, you would have gotten a long rambling rant and/or a screaming mental fit. But sometimes, things have a way of working out. Friday afternoon, Hubby and I left to go to New Jersey. Why would we want to go to New Jersey, you say? I would ask the same question. The answer is: It was Jamie's first football game of the season. And we figured, why not? I get discounted rooms at the Marriott, so I chose one near the football field and off we went. The trip down was pretty uneventful until we got about 2 miles from the hotel. It was 8pm - and dark. We were on some sort of three-lane highway with jersey barriers on one side (I see now why they're called Jersey barriers.....they have them everywhere in New Jersey) and stores and stuff on the other side. And we hit the mother of all potholes. We never even saw it coming....just BAM! And we were limping along on a flat tire. Hubby tried desperately to find a place to pull over........we slowly continued on as cars streamed past us, until I finally begged him to stop. We stopped right in the lane and got out. We had not one but TWO flat tires on the driver's side. Not just flat tires....but totally demolished tires with mangled rims. Another car pulled in behind us with a flat tire, and a third car limped slowly past us with another flat tire on his car. I pretty much flipped out......using language my mother would have slapped me upside the head for. The girls in the other car and I got on our phones to call AAA. The police came pretty quickly and blocked us so we wouldn't get hit. And now, here comes the BLESSINGS part of the story: * As I tried to call AAA back to let them know we had to be towed immediately or the police would tow us, they showed up.........five minutes after we called them. * The tow truck driver brought a flatbed for us, changed the other girl's tire, and then offered to bring our car to his garage 5 minutes away and have our car fixed first thing in the morning. * We told him we were staying at the Marriott down the street, and he offered to drop us off there. (Very classy showing up at a hotel with your car on a flatbed.....but hey, it's New Jersey) * At the hotel, we asked about places to eat within walking distance. There weren't any. But they had a complimentary shuttle to a number of different restaurants. We had a nice meal at Ruby Tuesdays with a ride back and forth. * The next morning I called my daughter, who was staying at a different hotel with the team. I said we weren't sure if what we'd do about getting to the game. We thought maybe we could beg the hotel to bring us in the shuttle. Jamie called a few minutes later and said one of the other parents offered to come get us at the hotel and bring us to the game. * The same parent brought us to the garage after the game. * The garage managed to save both the back rim and the back tire ........ although we couldn't believe the tire was salvagable. We had to buy one new rim and one new tire. (dammit, that tire was only a week old!!!!) But it cost us $275 instead of the $500 we were imagining. * Despite our concern about driving on a tire that some strange garage mechanic in Jersey told us was fine, we made it all the way home to New Hampshire without incident. And that, my friends, makes for a Happy Easter.