I was driving down the 60 a few days ago when the idea to write this blog began to noodle around in my mind, but I hadn’t actually written anything down until now. In the paper today was the following article:

Kids charged after having sex at school

NEW ORLEANS

With the weather warming up and swimming season almost upon us, I wanted to share with you a little blog that I wrote last year. A cautionary tale, if you please. Enjoy.”Shortly after Jack went home this afternoon, I sunscreened my kids and packed them into the van to take them swimming at the Hamilton High School. We got about two miles from home when my van ran out of gas. I’ve never had this happen to me, ever. I’m usually very good about getting gas when I get to a 1/4 tank, but I’ve been pretty busy the last few days. The light had come on, but my fancy computerized gadget told me that I still had 41 miles to go before I ran out. I was planning to stop when I passed a station on my side of the road, because it was rush hour and I didn’t want to make two lefts just to get gas. Especially when I so clearly had a long way to go before I was in trouble. Yeah, sure. Now I’m sitting in the right hand lane on McQueen during rush hour, and I’m considering the fact that I’m wearing flip flops and my bathing suit and I’m going to have to get out and push my van to the side of the road. The people behind me are honking and yelling nasty things at me because they think I’m an idiot and I’ve stopped my car in the road just to annoy them. I wish that I had, they were all very rude and unhelpful. I sat and waited for all the rude folks to pass me, so that I could open my door and start to push the car. Now, here comes the question: When you are alone, how does a woman push her van and turn her steering wheel at the same time? I tried it, and it’s darn near impossible. Thankfully, just then a nice mechanic from Brown and Brown Chevrolet stopped his truck and helped me push the thing into the nearest parking lot. He also explained to me that in this kind of heat, the floater inside of my gas tank will rise higher than the gasoline itself and my gauge will lie to me about how much gas I really have. Oh, goody. That’s very helpful, thank you Mr. Computer. Luckily for me, my dad lives close by and was available to bring me enough gasoline to get me to the station. Still, the poor kids had been strapped into their seats in the heat with no air conditioning for at least a half hour before he got there. Nick decided that during this time he really really had to go potty. Sure, I’ll just let you out and you can pee on the fancy desert landscaping in front of all the passing cars, just for added embarassment. Long story short: Dad came to the rescue, we made it to a QT, Nick went potty at the station and we finally made it to the pool to meet my friend Karli - an hour late. Forty-five minutes into our swim, some kid pooped in the pool and they shut the whole place down. Why do I leave the house at all?”