In the spirit of our last car-trouble related post, here’s how to have a rockin’ Friday morning.
1. Quietly kiss Andy and Drew goodbye as they both doze in Drew’s bed on a Friday morning.
2. Grab a winter hat for Owen and toss it into the back seat of the car with half a dozen others. (If he wears a hat while I drive, he claws at it to remove it.)
3. Buckle Owen into carseat.
4. Drive toward work, excited at the prospect of a lightning-fast, toddler-free drop at school and the productive morning that will follow.
5. Ten miles in, look with alarm at the dashboard as it dings and red warning lights flash across the display.
6. Signal turn.
7. Pull into next parking lot, in this case, the General Store in Minnetonka.
8. Put car in park.
9. Remembering the windy winter weather we’ve been experiencing, marvel at the car’s exhaust as it blows from your exhaust pipe to the front of your car.
10. Realize with alarm that this is not exhaust. It is smoke.
11. Yank keys out of ignition and grab bag from passenger’s seat.
12. Run around to rear of car and swiftly unbuckle baby.
13. As a swift afterthought, grab fleece blanket from the floor of the car.
14. Run in the opposite direction of the vehicle, huddling with baby by door of store.
15. Dial Andy.
16. Dial Andy.
17. Dial Andy.
18. Dial Andy AGAIN.
19. Realize that Andy’s phone is definitely not in earshot of Drew’s room.
20. Call mother-in-law and request an immediate ride to rescue cold baby and colder mama from the Minnesota cold.
21. Double up Owen’s hats, wrap blanket around him, and sit on a newspaper.
22. Watch with disappointment as six employees avert their eyes and dodge the weird chick with the baby by the front door as they head for the rear entrance.
23. [insert 18 more steps involving pick-ups, phone calls to work, phone calls to day care, tow trucks, repair shops]
72. Log six or seven dizzying hours from the home computer–accomplishing eighteen times more work than at the office. Yay!
73. Welcome home three tired boys from the Minnesota Zoo.
74. Rush into repair shop five minutes before close, $500 poorer but thankfully not carless before the weekend.
75. Take family to a restaurant but return to car immediately when told they will not allow high chairs at the open booths, and that a 15-minute wait will be necessary.
76. Take family to restaurant number two, only to find it closes at 2:00 in the afternoon. We seriously have to visit some hipper restaurants, because this place is clearly for fogies.
77. Settle on the glamour-less, tasteless Perkins that still has hot food and bear-shaped pancakes.
78. Upon arriving home, catch a whiff of something rotten.
79. Tear all food out of fridge to discover organic sage leaves that had dropped behind the shelves months ago.
80. Am I still writing? Really? Kudos for making this far. AS IF you ever wanted to take these tips. 
81. Peace out.
Oh no, I’m so sorry. You should’ve called me.I was still at home. Hope your weekend goes better.
What was wrong with your car?
The coolant hose fell off the radiator, so the smoke was pretty much all the antifreeze splashing all over the engine and burning off. They also fixed some intake valve. So two repairs plus a tow for $500 wasn’t so bad, all things considered.