Life, Limb, and Music Class

Oliver officially loves music class. I think he started to appreciate it so much more after Joanna was born. It's something he knows, something that stayed the same.

So, today, in spite of the snow storm, I was determined to make it to music class. My car wasn't as determined.

You see, I have to manually slide over the notch in my car to select where the air blows. There is debris or something that has it jammed, and it can't slide all the way over to windshield defogger. It used to not go at all, but my husband has used all of his might to slide it half way there for me a couple of times now. Unfortunately, I've lent my car out twice in the past three months (once to my parents and once to my in-laws), and, both times, I forgot to tell them not to slide the notch away from defogger. And, so, once again, I can't defog my windshield.

I left the house, and everything seemed OK. After half a mile, there was a light fog on my windshield. I resisted the urge to wipe and streak it, and I rolled down my window to the 27 degree weather instead. I figured, if the air temperature is the same inside the car as outside, it wouldn't fog. That's not what happened. The cold air mixed with the hot air I'd breathed onto the windshield and caused a total mess. I had to wipe it. Disaster. The windshield was streaked with fog and pearls of moisture. It completely deranged my view, and I couldn't make sense of what I was looking at. I thought about turning around, but I was 1/4 of the way there on a small street that only had turnoffs into unknown neighborhoods. Surely, it would be just as difficult to find a place to turn around and head home as it would be to make it to the rec center!

I was so very wrong. When there wasn't a car in front of me, I couldn't see the lanes. I kept trying to slide the notch over to windshield defogger, but it wouldn't hold. Half way to music class, driving on a busy street, looking out my side window to figure out where I was on the street, I realized it was more dangerous for me to press forward than it was to turn around. I somehow managed to switch lanes to turn left and head back home. I took all of the side roads so I could inch along, using anything I could as a guide to bring my car (and Oliver and me) home safely.

At a stoplight, I reached for my phone to call Andrew. He tried to insist on picking me up, but I was only three blocks from home. I didn't want Jo out in the mess, either, and on that long stretch on Yale, there's nowhere to pull over (It's a two lane road with open space on one side and gated communities on the other). Somehow, we made it back alive. I only really started to panic once; I kept fairly calm and collected the rest of the time, thankfully.

Oliver lost it when he saw we'd returned home. He'd known we were going to music class, and he started crying and screaming when we turned back into our townhome complex. Thankfully, my husband is amazing. He ran out of the house as we pulled up, and he quickly transferred Oliver to his car to drive him to music class. Joanna and I are now safe and warm at home, and the boys are at music class, singing and dancing the morning away.

I think I'd better refrain from driving in the cold from now on.