A Bump in the Road

The Break Down

This afternoon my car broke down on the side of the road. I had Will and Linden with me. My car has been acting funny for a few days. At first, we thought it was the battery, and I made sure to charge it overnight and charge-up our jumper box to put in the vehicle. So when my car began to show signs of dying, I made the decision to pull off of the busy road I was on and onto a less traveled path. My thought being, I would quickly jump the car and get back on the road . . . I was only about 3 miles from the house.

The problem was that the jumper box had lost it's charge. Now, I was stuck. I called a friend I had just been visiting with at a local park and asked if she was going to be driving by and could help out. She would be by, but first she had to drop off her grand daughter - in the opposite direction. So I settled in for the wait.

The Wait

I had pulled into a small area where a road had been shut down but still remained, just barricaded. The area was isolated and had thick shrubs. At the end of the road, there was a huge pile of some sort of gravel or dirt. Will spent forty minutes playing king of the mountain, sliding down the hill, or walking along the top ridge. I opened doors on either side of the car and the light breeze lulled Linden to sleep. My main concern was trying to balance my time between staying close to the car and keeping Will in my line of sight - unfortunately, this didn't leave me visible to people driving by.

The Help

We had only been there a few minutes when a scary looking older man in a small truck pulled up. He looked over the kids and I, then asked, "Anyone know you're out here?" I answered, "Yes", and he rolled up his window and left.

A nice woman in her mid-thirties stopped about fifteen minutes into our stay and offered us a jump. She didn't even know how to open her hood or how to fold down the rod to support it. The real suprise came when we realized you could not access the negative post to her battery - it was covered by her fuses. She tried calling her husband for help, but he was in a meeting. She finally left, without us ever figuring out how to get to her battery.

Then there were three different drivers that all did the same thing; they slowed down and yelled, "Got help coming?" As soon as they heard, "yes", they took off - never hearing the "But I could use a jump." Damn that slow southern drawl!

The Cost

The boys and I ended up spending about an hour outside. There was a cool breeze and plenty of shade. Will got to do something I dreamed of doing as a child - climbing a huge pile of dirt on the side of the road.

My friend and my hubby showed up within minutes of each other to help me out and I made it home safely. Turns out, it was the alternator. Steve spent all evening replacing it; and it cost a pretty penny.

Speaking of which, Will found a pretty penny while we were waiting for assistance to arrive ... along with a pretty dime.

Facebook

Cons

Like most people on Facebook, I spend half my time complaining about it. Here are just a few of the irritating things I dislike about Facebook:

1. Friend requests. It just seems rude to turn down a request to be your friend, but ... Do you really want the weird guy from work knowing everything about you? Do you want your church friends to see photos of you out with your party friends? And who really wants to reconnect with every person you went to elementary school with?

2. Notifications. You make one comment on one photo/status/wall post and then you receive 27 notifications telling you that other people have also commented.

3. Games. I don't want to send you items, see your farm, vote for you in a fake pagent, or buy your fake baked goods. I don't care that you just won 1,000,000 points or have advanced another level.

4. Online. Each time you decide to check your profile, every one of your "friends" will know you are online and will decide that this means you are free to chat.

5. Performance. There are many times when the site lags or freezes due to a heavy load.

6. Changes. It seems that every month or two you have to learn a new way of doing something you've been doing with no issues for the last few years. It's annoying - I don't like change.

Oh there's more; privacy, political or religious postings, sharing my info., forwarding tons of things, etc. Nothing major, just your ordinary complaints.

Pros

Here are a few of the reasons I love Facebook.

1. When you are isolated by location, health, or circumstances, you have a way of interacting with others - even meeting new people. Any form of social interaction is better than none.

2. You are in control of your profile in as much as you select which photo represents you and what information is supplied. I'm amazed on how nice we all look, how successful we are, and what great families we have. Sometimes, I go out to my profile just to remind myself of how well I'm doing.

3. It is a quick way to update everyone in your family at once about any major, or non-major, issues. It's also a good way to share photos of growing children with everyone and not have to mail out photos every year. Also an easy way to keep up with what family members are doing.

4. There have been more than one time when playing the many games on Facebook kept me sane. I may not be thrilled to see game posts on my feed now, but I use to be one of those people making gaming posts/requests. I get it.

5. It makes me laugh. I have several funny friends and relatives who's posts crack me up. Not a day goes by that I don't at least smile, if not outright laugh, at something I've read on Facebook.

6. You can hook up with people from your past that mean the world to you, but managed to loose touch with through the years.

Tonight

Will was playing on the computer this evening. He is often on the computer and is proficient at searching for and playing many free games.

I came in about eight to check my email and was shocked to find four receipts in my inbox from Facebook totally over $96 - for games. Back when I use to play games on Facebook I had attached a credit card to my account for automatic purchasing, and I never removed it. Will had followed some links and hadn't realized he was making purchases.

I immediately followed a link on the first receipt to dispute the transaction. It took less than five minutes to find and dispute all claims from this evening. By the time I removed my financial permission and returned to my email, Facebook had refunded every penny.

Tonight, I'm loving them.