It's raining...it's raining...it's pouring!

So...on our way home from delightful Park City, a little Ford ding occurred and this lovely message popped up: CHECK TRANSMISSION. No thanks. I'd rather not check it (sounds expensive), I'd rather that little message just go away and everything work, thankyouverymuch. So, car #1 in the shop....but don't worry, they'll call me by 6pm and let me know what's up. It's 11PM.
So...my favorite car of my life-Volkwagen Beetle, red, affectionately known as Penelope or Penny for short, NOT Peen-a-lope as Alexis refers to her as, because something about that sounds inappropriate. Go ahead, say it outloud. See? Anyway, she has been resting in my parents' garage for oh...two years now. Long story, but when she died (as in, when I hit a piece of tire and she nearly exploded) I didn't have the money to fix her. Now...I'm loaded...HA..RIGHT. But, now I drive grannymobile (Taurus above, who you will notice does not have a cute name, or any name for that matter), and am desperately missing Penny and her cute gumballness. So...decided to have her towed on in to the VW hospital (dealership) to diagnose (er, price how many burrittos I'd need to sell to drive her again). Cross your fingers. Car #2 in the shop and I really miss that fun little car.

And, get your flood pants on, here comes the downpour...as I was happily changing loads of laundry last night...DRYER BROKE! Luckily I dried my Sabor clothes just in time because something about this post tells me I'll need to sell mucho burritos. Blah. I tried my extent of dryer diagnosis...setting and resetting all the modes. And doing it all again. Then unplugging it and plugging it in. Then calling RJ in...who did all the same treatments. All to no avail. It hums along just fine...but sure doesn't turn or dry anything.

Get your umbrellas- there may be some good news...My buddy Jeff from college happens to be of the lovely Thomson family...as in, Thomson Electric....and my husband happens to be a computer whiz...a little fancy trade and Wa-La! Almost. Jeff has our dryer all taken apart and there's one piece of wire that's no bueno. The culprit?


14 of these suckers were IN the dryer, as in worked their way out of pockets, out of the drum of the dryer, and TO the motor metal. Notice the lint still stuck on one of them. Yikes. Now I don't see any need to point any fingers here...but one of us happens to use paper clips a lot to teach a small group of third graders and keep her classroom organized. But really, why should we blame anyone? RJ has always said we both need to check our pockets better. All I know is, I should have pulled friend Jeff aside and paid him to blame it on something else, anything else.