So, many of you know that I have wanted a truck for a long time. The Alero is starting to show its age, but it is just so nice to have everything paid off. After going to the Auto Show I just couldn't wait any longer. I know it is a Ford, and many know I am partial to Chevy/GMC, but I got a great deal on it. It is a 2008 F-150 and has about 19,000 miles on it. It is so nice to be back behind the wheel of a nice truck.......................that is, until I take it back to the rental car place in a few days. (Gotcha ya!) :) Well, I would like to have a newer truck, but I just can't force myself to enter into car payments again unless I have to. I had to rent this for a couple of days because after 140,000 trouble free miles, apparently the Alero thinks now is a good time to break. It is leaking coolant somewhere, but I am unable to see where with the resources I have. I left it with one of the mechanics that I used to work with at the dealership and he is going to put it up in the air, then hopefully find and fix it for me. I am really hoping and praying that it is a minor leak so that I am not stepping into a car payment or an expensive repair. :( This is actually the first time that I have ever rented a car for myself. I have always had back up vehicles of my own, or my parents have always been so generous and willing to let me use theirs (especially since my Mom only drives hers like 5,000 miles a year). However, I got busy and let my truck's registration expire (really stupid since it is like $35 to register and now I just don't have time), and my Mom's car all the sudden decided to have a weird problem with the anti-lock brakes a couple hours after mine went down.
So I called and negotiated some rates with the rental car guy. I asked him the prices of all the vehicles. He kept asking what I wanted and I told him I would decide if he could give me the price of the vehicles. He gave me the prices and instantly started to try to get me to take a sub-compact. Call me stuck-up, but I am not going to shoe-horn myself into a sub-compact economy car (although I did drive a Toyota Tercel through a lot of high school, but that's a different story). I talked him down to $21 for the tin can (normally $32/day), then I went on to talk him down to a mid-size sedan for $28 (normally $48/day). I really wanted a truck, but I was not willing to pay the $65 they wanted for that per day. When I got to the place I noticed there was only one mid-size; a Nissan Altima. That will be pretty nice, I thought. When we went inside to do the paperwork, the guy told me there was a lady without a reservation there that needed the mid-size. He said, that she could not have a tin can and it was too intimidating for her to drive a truck. He asked if I would take a truck for the same price. As I about wet myself, I started thinking (really a rare occurrence for me). I reasoned to him that the truck was going to burn a little bit more gas then the mid-size, so if he would let me have the truck at the sub-compact price, it should balance out. He sort of looked at me as if waiting to call my bluff, and when he couldn't catch it, he said, "Under the circumstances, I guess that would be okay." I almost screamed, "IT IS MORE THAN OKAY!" I just smiled and said, "great." Hey, if you don't ask, how can you receive? :)
FINGER SNAPPING
So, apparently people have caught on to me snapping my fingers towards A & T and have started to give me a hard time about it. I now feel the need to publicly defend myself. When I was a kid, my Mom would always snap her fingers at us. I can never remember a time in my life where she didn't. When we were lost in a store, we listened for snapping and instantly found her. When we were misbehaving, my Mom would snap her fingers. It would instantly get our attention and we would turn just in time to see "the Mother look." Any time I hear fingers snapping, I automatically turn my head to this day. I do not think of it as a control thing or anything else. It is just a learned behavior. It is a great way to non-verbally communicate or to get my attention from a distance without shouting.
Well, obviously some things are nurture as opposed to nature after all. I think this is a great tool as well. When the kids are far away from me in church and about to climb on something, I snap my fingers. They instantly turn, and stop their incorrect behavior. When I really need to find them, they instantly know it is important if I snap my fingers. When they could be hurt, I snap my fingers. When I am on an important phone call and cannot tell them to "shush please," I snap my fingers and then look at them pleadingly. I figure this is way better than yelling to them from across a crowded room, or in church, or whatever. It also prevents me from having to use my mean voice. It is somewhat rare for me to even use the snapping fingers at home, other than the phone calls. It is not at all as some have made it out to be. It is not like me calling a dog by whistling (which I have seen some parents do to their kids anyway) or a patting of my knee. I also do not use the finger snapping to have them "fetch" anything. Lastly, I do not leave them with a dog sitter, or in a kennel when I go on vacation. Completely different things for completely different species. I look at my finger snapping as I would look at the light from a light house. It directs them back to safety when they have drifted off of their course. Judge and mock if you will, but I will forever know that I am a tall, sturdy, lighthouse. :)
- To go along with the finger snapping, this one is great. We were doing something fun and I told the kids they could sort of head off on their own while I watched. Just as they were running off, some random person snapped their fingers. The kids both turned around with annoyed looks, and T said, "what do you need Dad, you told us we could go play!" Through laughter I had to explain that it was not I who had done the snapping.
- I was making the kids ham sandwiches for lunch today. T out of no where said, "when ham gets really cold, it shrinks into turkey."
- When our car broke, I explained what was wrong with it to the kids. A just matter of factly stated, "that's okay Dad, just go buy a new one." I laughed as I said that we don't need a new one, just need to fix what is wrong with ours. T laughed and said, "where do you even learn stuff like that A?!!!!" This is the same girl that told me that "if I watched the news I would have heard about the plane landing in the water in NY (which I incidentally had heard about). Apparently she is skipping over the economic news.
- The kids were talking to Grandpa one day in his bedroom. They suddenly got curious about his CPAP breathing machine. So, he put it on and showed them how it works. T said, "you look like you are going in the ocean Grandpa." A then pointed at the tubing for the mask and said through uncontrolled laughter, "NO.......Grandpa....you look like you have an elephant's trunk." This only caused T to have uncontrollable laughter.
- I was trying to get the kids to at least whisper in the dead quiet of Sacrament meeting last Sunday. Apparently I must not have paid attention to the phrase "say it, don't spray it" this time. T yelled out, HEY DAD..........STOP SPITTING ON ME!!!!" clearly for everyone to hear. Sort of the opposite of a whisper, but at least it made everyone have a good laugh. Funny, that seems to happen a lot at my expense...........hmmmm.
