It was a bad week. It started alright I guess. My co-worker and I bought tickets to take a trip to Philly/DC over our Winter Break. We are off to a nunnery and other places to be sure. On Wednesday I went to a program graduation- chit chatted with the former students and co-workers. I realized at some point on Wednesday that I had forgotten my phone at home.

Over the summer TX DOT opened an exit one exit before my exit. My exit is 161 N. The new exit is 161 S. Sometimes if I'm not really thinking about it, and sometimes even when I am thinking about I take the first exit, which is not my exit. This wouldn't irritate me so much if 161 S. wasn't a toll road. I have to pay 57 cents (or something crazy like that) to get on, and again to get back off. That's one exit, turn around get back on. There's no other way to get back to my place without paying the toll twice. It's not a big deal, just annoying.

Wednesday night after the graduation it was getting kind of cool, in the low 50s. I took the wrong exit. I had taken the wrong exit the day before and payed the toll twice, and I didn't want to do it again, so I decided to go across the median. The median is pretty small, maybe about 10-12 feet across, level. There were tire tracks, looked like lots of people made my same mistake, but maybe they weren't driving Priuses.

I drive a Prius. (What does your car sound like? Mine sounds like . . . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm When it's stuck in the mud between the highway and the wrong exit is sounds like . . . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm)

Now, that 25 year old Z sitting in my parking lot would not have been stuck. It sounds like RRRRRRRoooMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I wasn't driving the Z.

I looked for my phone to call Pudding. I didn't have it. I could have sworn I put it in my purse that morning. But, no fear. Inexplicably I have two cell phones. I was carrying the one I never use, which I usually leave at home. I picked it up, I called the number, it rang, the phone turned off. The battery was dead. But that's ok, I had the charger with me. Here's where it starts to break down.

The phone won't charge and turn on at the same time. It has to be turned on before you start charging if you want to use it while it is charging. So, I plugged it in to start charging, but the car has to be turned on for the phone to charge. Fine, but I saw on the console that the electric battery was completely depleted. Fine, except that I was also almost out of gas. So, if I turned on the car to charge the phone, it would use the gas engine, so by the time I made the phone call I might also be out of gas.

What it all came down to was pudding stopping to buy a tow rope, the police shutting down the exit and me getting extremely muddy. In the end all was well- except that the inside and outside of my poor little car and my shoes are covered in mud.

When I got home I found the other phone, in the other purse which I had just transfer ed everything else out of before I left that morning.