I'm a goofball

Are you shocked?

Today, after posting about having no vintage/secondhand/used salt and pepper shakers, I decided to head downtown and see what I could see at Not Necessarily New, The Mercantile and perhaps, the Cobweb.

So I shopped and browsed and searched and hunted, but nary a set of shakers could I find that could induce me to part with money. I had two requirements. No, three. They must be cute. They must have stoppers and appear to be food safe. And they must be personalized with either an 'S' and a 'P' or have different numbers of holes to differentiate between them. Oh, and they either had to be cheap or EXTREMELY cute!

I found cheap. I found cute. I found shakers with stoppers. I found food safe shakers. I found personalized shakers.

But I didn't find any that fit all my criteria. Because, you see, cheap is number one. And cute, etc. shakers that cost 20.00 a pair are too much for me to pay.

So I returned to the car to go home for lunch. Did I mention I was driving Molly's car, which I had to fill with gas before going very far? Wonder why she didn't want to take it this morning?

And I turned the key and nothing happened. Being a good farm girl, I popped the hood and retrieved a screwdriver from the trunk and hovered over the engine like I knew what I was doing. I gave the battery cables a few whacks with the screw driver. Don't laugh. This method has worked many times with this vehicle. This car's got problems that will not reveal themselves to repair people but lurk, waiting to strike when you least expect it!

But the whacking method did nothing this time. Except I broke the screwdriver handle....

I looked at my watch and discovered that it was almost noon and my knight in shining armor was probably heading to lunch and surely he would come rescue me! So I called him and he said he'd be there in a jiffy. Then it occurred to me that neither of us had jumper cables in our vehicles, but luckily he was lunching with Ed, who did have some. (note to self--buy jumper cables for the green car).

And so I had two knights coming to my rescue on their white horse (city pickup!). I stood in the middle of the parking spot by my car in the blazing noonday sun, waiting to see their dust on the horizon. I was so happy to see them and was ready to head home in an air-conditioned car.

But it still wouldn't start.

So I had to call Sarah who was at home to come and get me because the two knights did not want to take this damsel to lunch with them and so I had to wait in the BLAZING sun for a while longer till she got there.

And the knight sent someone else to look at the car that we had abandoned on the main street and see what was wrong.

And you know what? He found out right away.

Do you want to know?

I should be embarrassed. But why? And since Les is going to inform everyone that I'm such a goofball, I might as well tell the tale first, right?

The darn car was in REVERSE!

Among the many eccentricities of the car is that you don't need a key to start it or turn it off. You can turn it off while driving down the road if you're brave enough. (I'm not sure which daughter informed me of that fact shudder). So when I parked, I guess I didn't put it quite in park, just reverse, turned it off and went on my salt/pepper shaker quest!

I looked at all the gauges and levels and all that but it never occured to me to look at THAT!

So now you know. If your car won't start, first check that it is in Park before calling anyone!

P.S. Just in case Les wants to inform you of this incident, just ask him how much the speeding fine is in a highway work zone.