Sad Holiday Truths//Rough Night

While at Walmart, making a cat food run because I fell asleep waiting for it to stop snowing and thanks to what would've been a fatal single-vehicle accident (I would've been that vehicle) except that my husband has trained me as a defensive winter driver since I was fifteen years old and even though I only started driving a few years ago, I have always paid attention and kept those lessons in my head, I arrived at Petsmart right after the registers turned off.

They're really good about letting you in even if they just closed if you know exactly what it is and exactly where it is and if you're only after one or two things, but after the registers are shut down, there's nothing they can do.

So off I went to the grocery store for bottled water (we were out) so the kitties and I wouldn't die of dehydration. Yes, our cats drink bottled water. You think I let them drink the nasty tap water around here? (Apollo drinks tap water mostly. I wish he didn't, but he likes to spill his water everywhere and bathe in it, about half a gallon a day. Way too expensive there.) Then I headed to Walmart for some lesser quality cat food (better variety and better prices than the grocery store) and for some me food because I needed food, too.

I found a little present for my husband. Got something to put on my uncle and grandfather's graves (late for Veteran's Day, but Wednesday is my grandfather's birthday). Got something to keep my hands busy because I don't feel like gaming or origami and I'm going fucking insane.

Also got our chocolate oranges early so we'll have them for one of our Christmas Eve traditions. (Sometimes they're hard to find, so I went ahead and got them when I saw them.)

Then, while browsing about, looking around for more stocking-stuffer ideas for my husband, I saw these adorable card holders. You're supposed to use them to display the holiday cards you receive. They're really cute, aren't they? And for a moment, they even made me smile.

But we don't get Christmas cards. Sometimes we do from my husband's family, but that's maybe one or two.

That was a fantastic way to shit on my already not-going-great night.

Then my card gets declined. Fun. Get that sorted out.

Then the truck won't start in the parking lot. Yeah, it has a quirk where it requires a trick to get it started (we affectionately call this our anti-theft feature), but what happened tonight made it impossible to perform that trick, therefore turning my truck into a giant steel brick (because my truck is steel, not aluminum).

I struggled and struggled with it and finally, by some miracle, was able to overcome it and get the truck started, but not before having a massive panic attack.

After safely pulling into the driveway, I tried to replicate the issue the truck had. Can't do it while the truck is warm. So if I don't feel like shit, I'm gonna try again in a couple hours after it's been sitting nice and cold for a while.

I have a theory about what's happening, and an idea for a...less dangerous way to overcome the issue than what I ended up having to do.

My husband is currently out of town, so I think that, combined with the events from earlier are what made that panic attack so bad.

Ugh.

If the issue with starting the truck was a one-off, awesome. If this is gonna be a new regular thing? Well, at least it'll make jacking our truck virtually impossible so long as it's cold.

The nature of the quirk it has already is quite useful in that even if you tried to hotwire it, unless you got extremely lucky, it still wouldn't start. It's like it has a mind of its own and refuses to go with anyone it doesn't want to, and you have to know the secret handshake for it to even consider trusting you.