It was a dark and stormy day...

It was supposed to be a decent day. Yeah, we had to give the girls back to their dad today, which always sucks, and we're in the middle of thing with him where the two older girls want to live with us more than with him (one wants to stay with us full time, the other wants to stay with us 2/3s of the time) and he's fighting us on it, and it's going to be a lot of time and trouble and money.

But, still, I had a game session scheduled with SuperGirlfriend and a couple of people who responded to an ad we put up. We were both looking forward to it. Two of the people had canceled on us (actually, they were just going to blow us off and I would still be in the dark except I called them to check on Thursday and they made lame excuses about having to cancel and having lost my phone number), but we still had another guy showing up, and SuperGirlfriend and I really wanted to play.

Plus, after dropping off the kids, I was going to do some Valentine's Day shopping for SuperGirlfriend...

But, we bought Valentine's Day gifts for the kids Thursday night, and gave them to them today, and whiney sulky Super Drama Teen didn't like her stuff, and wanted to exchange it, so we took them over to Target. Now, you take SuperAdorableKid into a department store with you and you add at least 20% to your shopping duration and to your exasperation level, so I volunteered to keep her out in the car, since we had to get the kids over to their dad's place by noon. And that would have been fine, but she's restless, and likes to throw herself around and kick her feet, and at some point she must have kicked the key that SuperGirlfriend left in the ignition so we could listen to the radio, and broken something up in the lock, because when everyone got back out to the car, it wouldn't start, and the key won't slide out, either.

So, the game session is canceled, which sucks, and I probably shouldn't spend money on Valentine's Day because we need to get the car fixed, which sucks worse, and we had to call the kids' dad to come get them at the Target parking lot, which sucks even worse (although we're appreciative he showed up so fast and was kind enough to try and give us a jump, which told us it was the ignition, and not the battery) and SuperGirlfriend is off chasing around the hinterlands with her sister and her mother and her dad trying to get her car fixed, no doubt stressing out all over the place, but she made me stay home, and that sucks worst of all.

Sometimes things just don't go as planned.

Which sucks.

ADDENDUM (twenty minutes later):

Suddenly... a phone rang!

It was SuperGirlfriend. Turns out SuperAdorableKid didn't kick the key, she kicked the gear shift. We were in Reverse, which was why the car wouldn't start and the key wouldn't come out.

So... okay... all's well that ends well, I guess.

I feel like an idiot I didn't think of the gear shift, but as I am one of the few 44 year old residents of the industrialized world who has never had a driver's license, well, I don't feel like THAT much of an idiot.

I'm just glad it's working again.