Drama Filled Day

Thursday was a day much like any other day for me.  I had Betsy while Kalissa was at class until noon.  Karl is home for a few days until his apartment opens up so he was watching Betsy while I was up working on my Smith Mountain Quilt.

At about 11 am Kalissa called me saying she had plans to drive down to West Union where her boyfriend Craig works and meet him for lunch.  While she was there, did I want her to bring chicken.  Well West Union has a A&W type restaurant called The Barrel that is only open in the summer.  They make the best chicken…so “Yes!  Bring me chicken!”

She came home with the chicken but had to share the bit of drama that had happened.  Craig drove his car from work and met her there.  When he went back to get in his car, the tire was flat.  They talked to the owner of the restaurant and asked if they could leave the car there ensuring that they would attend to the car as soon as Craig was off work.  That was fine.  Well Craig’s car has a weird tire size so they called around and tried to find a new one.  Finally they found one in Decorah.   Kalissa drove Craig back to work then up to Decorah to get the tire and back so he’d have a replacement–which turned into an almost two hour drive by the time she dropped the chicken off here.

Then I got a call from friends of ours asking if I would take care of their little one for the evening.  I said sure then ran back upstairs to frantically work on my quilt in an effort to try to finish it before the baby came.  At about 5:15 I got a call from Craig.  Could I come and get him?  His car was in an accident.  I said sure then realized that the baby was suppose to come at 5:30.  UGH.  West Union was a half hour away.  Karl had to go to work.  I didn’t want to leave Craig in the lurch.  UGH.  Think Jo-think.  Well that’s when it came to me that Kelli might be free.  Luckily she was but she had an issue with her car too.  She ended up going to their farm getting her husband’s pickup and went to get Craig.

I ended up with a bunch of hungry people so I made supper and listened to Craig’s story.

It turns out that while he was at work a driver along the highway had a medical emergency and lost control of his vehicle.  The driver left the road and slammed into Craig’s car as well as two other cars leaving Craig’s car looking like this.

As we sat around the table talking we all were surprised in the list of circumstances that took place to get all us at the table together on a Thursday….
1-Kalissa NEVER has met Craig at The Barrel for lunch before.
2-When Craig has gone to The Barrel he always parks north of the building not south like this time.
3-How he had a flat tire right there.
4-How the driver had his medical episode right there.
5-How I happen to be babysitting.
6-How Karl happen to be leaving and couldn’t get Craig.
7-How Kelli’s car wasn’t working and she had to borrow Jason’s truck.

We are all just so thankful that Craig was not there changing the tire when the guy hit his car is what I am most thankful for.  Craig had been talking about getting a new vehicle so this isn’t the most horrible thing that could have happened.  We had a spare vehicle we can borrow to him.  It’s just all a little inconvenient for everyone.

The guy who hit Craig’s car is okay.

What a crazy day…in the end I think the part that I felt the worst about was hearing Kalissa say, “I thought things were suppose to get easier once Craig had his full time job.”  She was a little teary eyed.  I’ve known for years that there is no magic button and things don’t just fall into place.  It is a little hard to see the day your kiddos realize that too.  I took a minute to remind her–Craig’s okay and that’s all that really matters….