Hey Dads! Was winter everything you hoped it would be? There was much skating, sledding, and freezing in our home. Now, on to spring! But first a short visit to winter. If you read my last story, you’ll recall that I recently got the van started with a boost, parked it in a snowy ditch, and was rescued by a good man with a good 4-wheel-drive truck. The saga continued to unfold…
I was driving away from the snowy ditch (which had some nice tire tracks in it now) to bring my eldest daughter to work. As we left, I asked her, “Do you have my phone?”
She did not have my phone. We did a quick look around the vehicle for my phone. Under seats. In glove compartment. Way up on the dashboard where you can hardly reach. I checked all my pockets. She checked all her pockets. And her purse pockets (there seemed to be a lot of those). She called my phone with her phone. No rings, rumblings, or revealings of phone location.
I searched through the vast caverns of my memory to the last time I had my phone. It was when I called the Auto Club to tow me out of the snowy ditch…the ditch…THE DITCH! Uh, oh. Could it be? I turned to my daughter, “Maybe it fell out of my pocket in the ditch. I’ll go back and take a look. Can I borrow your phone to call my phone again when I’m close?” Being the good daughter that she is, she agreed.
I returned to the scene of the slip. I had crawled under the van to hook up the tow strap. Maybe my phone fell out of my pocket. I dug around in the snow but found nothing. Maybe it had fallen on the road in the general vicinity of the ditch. I started walking all around the area with my eyes glued to the ground. Then I saw something! Something small! Something square! Something…that had clearly been run over. It was my phone.
I was happy. I was sad. It had fallen out of my pocket directly into the path of the truck that pulled us out of the ditch. The truck ran over it. Was there a chance it was okay in the protective phone case? So close! A giant crack split the screen down the middle, just enough that I couldn’t enter my code or use the phone. One half looked normal and one half looked like the static colour bars of death we used to see on TV channels that were not broadcasting anything. The day could only get better from there.
The first repair shop I went to could not repair it. The second repair shop…had my screen in stock! And a couple hours later it was good as new! Some days are like that, aren’t they? But all those problems could have been worse and I’m grateful everything worked out like it did. I even chuckled as I wrote about it. Keep your chin up, dad! Enjoy the adventures with your kids, old or young. Maybe take one or two out on a date tonight or this weekend. Time flies. Make every moment count! Even the broken phone ones!
Jason Weening needs a phone to call his 10 kids and one patient wife. Check out his new book of funny family stories, “Yes, Dear…I’m Watching Them” on Amazon