No title for this post, just a story

So, I’m at the car wash yesterday to get the snow grime off my car, and it’s Christmas Eve and all, so I’m really feeling sorry for the guys who are having to work out in the cold. But not too sorry that selfish me stays away because I figure, hey, they’re already open so I might as well. Anyway the guy checking me in puts my license plate into his little hand held receipt maker and comes to my window and tells me that I’ve had ten car washes and have earned a free one.  Well, I know that I’m not the one who has brought my car in ten times, so as I’m pulled through the tunnel of suds, spray and giant blow dryers I quietly thank my Sweetie.

After pulling out on to the street, I stop at the light and notice a CRACK! at the bottom in my new windshield. The windshield with a special defroster at the bottom. The windshield that got replaced on December 3rd because of the destruction wreaked upon it by the Big Wind on November 20th.  I only mention the dates because on December 4th I flipped on the windshield defroster, drove for a couple of miles, only to witness smoke wisping up through my front driver-side windshield vent (!) accompanied by a smell not quite like burning wires, but not a good smell either, ya know? So I  take the car to the glass shop and the guy pops the hood to see if there are burned out wires, but because of the cowling under the hood, he can’t tell. So we agree that I’ll bring it back in on Monday so they can take some time with it. Well, we all know what happened inbetween-time. That snow is still on the ground because our temps can’t get much above freezing for any length of time. 

Back to the CRACK! … Long story short, my car hadn’t gotten a bath in the last two and a half weeks (at least), so after the free car wash I was finally able to look through an entirely clean windshield, not just the one cleaned by wipers and wiper fluid, and there it was, making its way up from the bottom of the windshield: a two-inch finger of a CRACK!. ARRGH!  Figuring I’d gotten hit by a piece of road gravel, I headed over to the glass shop in the hopes that they were open and could quickly repair the CRACK!. As I suspected, they were closed, but it gave me a chance to look at the CRACK! up close and at first I was confused. It looked like I’d gotten hit by a rock very low on the windshield, but when I looked closer and felt the spot, it was completely smooth. All the damage was within the windshield. That handy-dandy defroster had shorted out and the hot wires had literally melted the glass of my windshield. I suspect that every time I’ve turned it on in the last three weeks, more damage has been added.  The CRACK! comes out of bubbles of melted glass. So, I guess I get to take the car back to the glass shop for a new windshield. Whether the windshield itself was defective or they did something wrong when installing it matters not. Sigh.

But it’s Christmas! And I’m damn grateful that the biggest thing I’ve got to worry about today is my windshield. That, and getting the house cleaned up before the kids come over.  I can hear Sweetie in his office wrapping presents. I think this is the first year that he hasn’t been able to wrangle our daughter into wrapping his gifts, and I’m feeling all squishy-good inside knowing he’s doing something he doesn’t really feel comfortable doing, but is doing it anyway because he loves me. (Kind of like hanging out in hospitals).

We had dinner with Sweetie’s family last night, the kids are coming over today, and tomorrow Sweetie and I head down to SoCal to do Christmas with my father’s family. I wish I could be with my mom too, but she’s halfway across the country and spending the holiday with my brother and his family, which is a good thing, since my sister-in-law just lost her mom a couple of weeks ago. See what I mean? A bubbled windshield ain’t nothing.

May you find your own joy this season.

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