Just One of those Days

Some days are better than others.  If cars had minds and feelings, I'd feel mighty sorry for our blue Vauxhall Zafira yesterday.  Juli had popped over to one of the local shopping centers to take care of some last minute details before we head back home to the States for a month.  On her way back to our place, she paused at the entrance to a round-about and was nailed from behind by a car who decided to make a run after making a hit.  I guess the offending party was in such a hurry that they couldn't be bothered to stop and do the right thing.  Thankfully, Juli was fine, but we can't shut the back door of our minivan.  And since we didn't have much of anything else to do before heading home, we can now spend the next couple of days sorting  out insurance, accident reports, and getting the back end of our vehicle functional.

Well, I kind of already got it functional.  Since we needed to transport some friends to Juli's and Jo's softball game last night, I came up with an ingenious idea - a shoestring!  Our backdoor is literally being held down by one of my old shoestrings.  And to think that I've always felt kind of useless in the mechanics and home improvement department!

We were able to get our friends out to the softball game, but our fun was just beginning.  Around the second or third inning, a lady walked over to the field to let everyone know that some cars had been broken into in the carpark.  I made my way over to see if our van had been victimized and at first I was relieved to see that though many of the cars in this small park had their windows shattered, our van seemed to be just fine.  And then I looked a little closer and discovered all sorts of goodies flung around the inside.  Thankfully the thieves were able to jimmy our van lock and spared us the added bonus of a shattered window.  Unfortunately though, Jo had left her laptop in the back of our van and as you might imagine, it was nowhere to be found.  Our friends had all taken their belongings with them to the field and so in addition to the laptop, the only other items stolen was our GPS and about 40 euros in cash.  The good news is that the Dublin Bay Packers won their game!  Just one of those days.  America, here we come! - Shay