Luck

Colleen and I spent the entire week at work talking about going to lunch at One World on Friday. Mmmmm. I was sooo looking forward to it! Then school was cancelled due to the cold. Oh well, we'll just go on Saturday instead. Sure, no problem!!!

Saturday I had a vet appointment for Brady-dog at 11:30am. He needed his annual vaccines and had been limping badly for a week or so. The vet took one look at Brady and said "Suze, he blew out his other knee." Back when Brady was three, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament, probably while jumping for frisbees. The same vet (this is the one I worked for for six years) performed a major surgery on his right knee and said his other knee would go out "probably sooner than later." NINE years later... Anyway, the vet said there's no way he'd do this surgery on such an old dog (long, hard surgery, long, hard recovery- especially for a big dog.) So, he put Brady on arthritis meds for the rest of his life, patted him and hinted that the next time he saw him would be the "final visit."

It was obviously not a happy vet visit, but I still had my One World lunch to look forward to, right? Right? I dropped the dog off at home and immediately left to pick up Colleen. We wanted to watch a little of an exercise class at the Riverplex before actually attending. The class ended at 1pm and we made it just in time to watch at about 12:45! The class was called Body Jam and we realized within seconds it was far beyond our skill level :) Well, at least mine! It requires dancing ability. Um, no. We spotted my dad working out (this becomes important later) so stopped and said hi before going to the sales desk to sign a paper I HAD to sign asap, but ONLY was able to sign during sales hours. I, of course, am NEVER there during sales hours.

We walked up to the sales desk just as the sales lady was leaving on a facility tour. She'll be back in ten minutes. Ugh. We're STARVING, but if I don't sign the paper, I won't have another chance before I get back from vacation and that may mean my dad (we are "couples" members together) will be denied access to work out. We HAVE to wait. FINALLY, sales lady returns and looks up my file. I don't need to sign anything, they just need an "in case of emergency" phone number in my file. I give it and we jump with joy that we are FINALLY going to lunch!

As we approach my car, I notice the rear, driver's side tire is flat as a pancake. Ugh. We're starving. Oooh, I have a can of Fix-A-Flat! Oooh, it is frozen solid. Colleen walks back into the building to get a park district police officer to help us while I unload my spare tire and all the tools. The cop easily removes the lugs, but can't remove the wheel. He goes to find a crowbar. Meanwhile a guy driving a snow plow comes to help. (Colleen's in the bathroom trying to thaw the Fix-A-Flat with the hand dryer and/or water.) Mr. Plow lays on the ground and pounds my wheel with a hammer. It doesn't budge, but he's DETERMINED. Bang. Bang. Bang. He finally gives up just as the cop returns with the crowbar. The cop has no luck. Now my dad comes to his car and gets in on the action. He also produces a frozen can of Fix-A-Flat. He then offers to go to Wal-Mart (right across the river) for more. The very nice cop puts the lugs back onto the tire and helps put away all the tools. Colleen and I sit in the car for hours and hours (ok, not really) waiting for my dad to return.

WOOOHOOOOOOO, Dad is back! We fill the tire and are FINALLY headed to One World. We are so hungry and cold we just sit and whine until our food comes. At 3pm, we eat. We sat at One World until 4:30 when Gene and the kids showed up to escort us to Wal-Mart to have the tire repaired. Thank goodness my dad bought TWO cans of Fix-A-Flat because my tire was flat again. I made it to Wal-Mart and we all hopped into the van to take Colleen home. I picked her up at 12:30 to "quick drop by the Riverplex" and have lunch. I dropped her off at 5:30pm.

Ironically, I had gone to Super Wal-Mart for groceries early in the morning and bumped into a former vet's office coworker who was on her way to work and made my vet appointment for a few hours later. I then just happened to find a Wii Fit (I've been looking for months) and both of my favorite flavors of soda were stocked! I thought to myself "Wow, this is my lucky day!!!"