The Red Vest to the Rescue Once Again

Thanks to her wonderful grandfather, who recently passed away, Harleigh now has a car. It was one of his wishes that she have one. With the help of her grandparents here in Atlanta, she now has a 2002 Nissan Sentra, in great condition. With all of her extra-curricular activities both before and after school, jobs, babysitting commitments, wanting to go the gym, etc. this will help us out considerably. With a full-time job, it's really hard for me to juggle work and getting Harleigh to all the places she needs to be. Melinda, a dear friend and stay-at-home mom, has bent over backwards to help out, but it's just a band-aid to what we really needed which is for Harleigh to be able to get to and from where she needs to be at the times needed.

One snafu with the car is that when we purchased it there was a CD stuck in the CD player. It played OK, but just wouldn't eject. After googling "CD stuck in car CD player," Harleigh and I went to work "operating" on the patient using everything from tweezers to duct tape to a shish kabob skewer. To no avail.

We had to make a trip to Ace Hardware to get an extra key as well as a new battery for the car remote. As readers of my past posts know, Ace Hardware is my hardware heaven here on earth. I extolled their virtues with the story of the key. These men can do anything.

So in we walked, to lots of hellos from all the guys (Harleigh used to work part time there). After addressing the key and remote, I asked my "red vest" if he knew of a way to get the stuck CD out. Within a matter of minutes there were red vests everywhere, pulling together an arsenal of tools. There was no doubt that the challenge was "on" and that we would not leave Ace Hardware without an ejected CD in hand. And we did. (The player still eats CDs, but at least we have a CD in there now that Harleigh doesn't mind listening to over and over again.)

I baked brownies, like I always do when my knights-in-shining-armor get me out of scrapes and do things that they don't have to do. This time I made a stencil (thank gosh for easy-to-cut logos) and the guys will hopefully know how much I appreciate all they do. (That or they'll think I'm that crazy lady who needs to get a life 'cause she took time to cut an Ace Hardware stencil for the powdered-sugar logo emblazoning their gift of brownies. Ah well, one more thing that sets me apart and paves the way for me becoming quite the character in my old age.)