all i wanted was something sweet. maybe some cookies.

so, saxy pulls the car out of the garage for me like he always does, and a few minutes later i go out to head off to the store.

except the car won't start.

it makes a noise like it's trying to turn over, then stops and . . . nothing. the car isn't even trying to start. just nothing. the radio clicks a few times, then it too stops.

to my credit, i didn't panic too badly. and i did actually have a good gut feeling about it: battery. neither of which helped us in a neighborhood where we still don't know anyone. i tried calling my brother, but he didn't pick up. so i suggested to my husband that perhaps we should see if anyone in the neighborhood had jumpers.

now hubby can be quite charming in social situations if given enough time to prepare. but not only is he generally antisocial anyway, he also has that problem that many with disabilities have - he has difficulty with abrupt changes. (heck, many non-disabled persons have that problem - but saxy is definitely a stickler for routine.) so a bit later i look and saxy is still sitting on the couch, doing nothing. i understand his difficulties, but no car = no work = no money. yes, it's late, all the better reason for him to go looking for help than me. but no, he's sitting there doing nothing. i finally get up and go knock on a few doors until i find someone to help. and the mosquitos didn't help my mood much while doing so.

i do manage to find a little help, and it turns out i'm right, it was the battery. so, once we get the car running, we're off to wal-mart to get a new one.

and on the way i think saxy hit a dog. i'm not sure because he didn't stop and we didn't see any sign of it when we came back. i'm pretty sure i felt the tap of hitting the animal (saxy says he didn't feel anything) and i know i heard a yelp.

in saxy's defense, it was a black dog on a street with very few lights and with nothing to make it more visible in the darkness. people were there and, as far as i can tell, it wasn't on a leash for them to pull it out of the street.

but the fact that saxy kept going upset me greatly. no, we can't afford a vet bill, but to just keep driving? i don't care how focused he was on our problem, that just seemed wrong.

by now i'm barely speaking to my husband and he's being quite snappish at me. it's like it's my fault the battery went dead. hell, i was glad we found out about it tonight rather than at 7:30 a.m. when we're trying to get me and froggy off to school! at least tonight we were able to attempt to do something. tomorrow the neighborhood would have been pretty dead with everyone off to work.

the battery didn't cost much. we didn't talk the whole way home - not even when we passed where the dog was and didn't see anything. actually, it's probably a good thing that saxy didn't say anything. i was plenty irritated at him for damn near biting my head off at wal-mart and any remark from him might have erupted into one hell of a fight. i was having a bad enough night as it was, adding a fight to the mix would have been bad, very, very bad.

the whole thing only took about 3 hours, but they were a very long 3 hours.

and i still wish i knew for sure that the dog was okay. :(