Being Pulled

Some days things just don't go the way I planned. I had a good plan yesterday, I thought. I would order a pizza as a treat for the kids and my hubby, pick it up before he got home from work, and go off to my preschool staff Christmas party. Sounds simple, right? As Joey says, "Nooope."

I started to bundle up the kids to get the pizza and I realized....my coat was nowhere to be found. My coat containing my wallet in which resides the debit card I use to pay for 99.6% of all my purchases. Look in car. No coat. Look in house. No coat. Ug. I must have forgotten to put my coat in the car when we left Frank's parents on Sunday evening. Mind you, I checked 87 times to make sure I put the kids' coats, hats, gloves, and other winter paraphernalia in the car. But my own coat? Nooope. So I had no way to pay for the pizza I had just ordered. I never have cash. I was out of checks. Oops.

So when Frank got home, he valiantly offered to go get the pizza with the kids, so I wouldn't be late to my party. All three kids and car seats do not fit in his truck, which meant he got to take the BIG UGLY GREY VAN. In it's former life, the BIG UGLY GREY VAN (BUGV) was a church van that was later used to haul stuff for a business and finally ended up in our possession as a means to haul junk to the junkyard as we work on our house. We really want to drive the BUGV to our pastor's house sometime and tell him we found a sweet deal on a van for the church just to see his reaction.... Anyway, the point is that BUGV is not the most reliable vehicle, but then again, neither are the other vehicles we own. It makes every day an adventure.

So off I went to my party, where I enjoyed a delish meal at the Olive Garden sans kids and got to appreciate the wonderment of preschool teacher holiday sweaters. I also picked up a couple of groceries and found an awesome sale on sleepers (3 for $10!!) and had fun picking out matching sleepers for my crew to wear Christmas morning. (Awwwww....)

When I finally returned home, Frank casually mentioned that we needed to go pick up the van because it died. Ummmm...so how did they get home? They walked. In the cold. Frank lugging Baby Jay in his car seat and two other kids in tow. Fortunately it wasn't that far and there is a grocery store on the way home where they took a "warm break." So where was my phone so that he could have gotten a hold of me? Tada! In my coat pocket, of course! Amazing how one spacey moment can affect so many things.

So you'd think Frank would be pretty angry with me and the world in general at this point. Nooope. He bought cookie dough at the store and when they got home he baked cookies with the kids and was wrapping Christmas presents when I got home. If the van breakdown had happened to me, I'd probably be found hiding in bed snarling at my kids and eating my weight in chocolate.

Then came the question...do you want to be the puller or the pullee? Needless to say, we've done this before. I hate being either...both make me very, very nervous. But since it was my fault, I inhaled deeply and accepted my responsibility in this mess. I would be the pullee. We made a quick call to our emergency babysitter, Haley, to see if she could come over and keep watch over our sleeping children for a few minutes so we could get the van without putting the kids through more torture than they could handle in one day. Being the extremely super awesome person she is, she said she'd be over in a few minutes. Then we got a call back. Haley's dad, hearing our situation, was on his way instead to help Frank pull the van. "You don't need to be out in that cold," Haley's mom said.

So there I was. I had made the day very inconvenient for everyone concerned, yet I had been shown a lot of grace. Haley's dad helped pull the van home, but I somehow felt like I was still the pullee. Sometimes I don't deserve help from other people. Sometimes it's hard to put away pride and even ask for help when I need it. But God is gracious and has surrounded me with people who love me, faults and all. They pull me home when I'm broken and patch me up and get me running again. And God does the same thing, for that matter! He never junks an old make or model no matter what the repair cost is. God does not make junk. So I thank God for that, and pray that I can pull and patch when it's my turn. Ha! Who would ever imagine me as a tow trucker or a mechanic!

P.S. I just heard about this fabulous thing known as "pizza delivery" where teenagers in funny hats will bring a pizza to your doorstep. Some pizza places will even let you pay for pizza online or over the phone...no actual card needed if you have the card number and expiration date...this could be revolutionary for scatterbrained and cashless people such as myself, albeit a little scary...jumping into the 21st century can be intimidating like that...