We have a car, and I mean A car. One. It’s a 2002 Volvo station wagon that is beginning to show its age. The leather upholstery has been completely kid-ified, the central console is broken (by a kid standing on it), and I don’t even want to know what’s under the backseat. But it’s paid for.

Anyway, last Friday the yellow “check engine” light came on while we were running errands. Just knowing it was something terrible, I called the dealership to have them look at it. In the meantime we went through the owner’s manual and checked everything we could check. One of the things mentioned that can cause that light to come on is a loose fuel filter cap.

OMG, what is that?! It sounds serious! Nope, they mean the gas cap. I was the last person to gas up the car so I went out and check it. I couldn’t remember if I had tightened it down at the gas station but I did so when I checked it. The “check engine” light still mocked me from the dashboard. Stupid light.

After driving rather gingerly, waiting for the engine to grind to a halt, I took in today. The guy at the dealership asked if it was shifting fine, I said it was, then he asked me about the gas cap. I told him that couldn’t be it because the light didn’t go off after I tightened the gas cap. He told me that the light actually has to be reset. I told him that I would be embarrassed, but delighted, if it was just the gas cap.

I called Mr. Prairie and told what the guy said, and HE said, “So there’s a chance you broke our car?” I tried to protest that I didn’t like to tighten the cap until it clicked because I was afraid I would break it. Mr. Prairie informed me that was stupid, because the clicking tells you it’s closed.

The dealership guy just called me, I owe them $98 for the diagnostic and $54 for a new gas cap. The rubber seal was worn out, you know, because it got all dried out. Because I didn’t tighten it down.

Stupid gas cap.

Before you freak out and start checking local hospitals to find out where to send flowers, I’m perfectly fine and it wasn’t as serious as it sounds. Let me just state for the record that people drive way too fast and/or recklessly in our neighborhood, especially in front of the school.

I had just collected Monkey from school and we were walking back to the car when one of his friends hollered at him and asked us to follow him to his house, so I answered back that we had to go to the store. We had just reached the front of the car and I was trying to get Monkey to his door safely (thank goodness I was walking to the outside) when something bumped into my elbow. I thought somebody was trying to get my attention, turned out to be the driver’s side mirror of a car! He got my attention alright, but apparently I didn’t get his. He kept driving.

I am extraordinarily lucky that it was not more serious. It didn’t really hurt that much, just made my arm felt like I’d bumped my funny bone, hard. Well, my arm felt funny and I was trying to shake it off and making a pained face when Mr. Prairie asked my why I hadn’t screamed when the guy hit me. I’ll tell you why, because being hit by a car is just such a stunning experience that I was shocked into silence. Even more shocking, the guy just kept driving. Mr. Prairie said he did slow down a bit, but since I wasn’t lying in a bloody, mangle heap in the road, he just kept driving.

Then Mr. Prairie asks me, “Is it that serious?” And I answered, “No, it just feels like when you bump your elbow really hard, because, you know, A CAR HIT ME!” And he just kept driving. If I’d had the foresight to plan for the day when I was bumped by a car,  I would’ve banged on the car Midnight Cowboy-style and yelled, “I’m walkin’ here!” But alas, who plans to be HIT BY A CAR?!

Monkey, who was holding my other hand when the guy hit me with his car, and did I mention, just kept driving, seemed to be unaffected. We proceeded to the grocery store and got our shopping done. (One child per cart, trust me on this one!) When we were done and loading up the Prairie Family Truckster, Monkey spotted a semi  backing up to the store’s loading dock. It was backing up and beeping and he panicked. He was sure the truck would hit us all (it was quite a ways away), so he hurled himself out of the cart and demanded that we all get in the car. RIGHT NOW!!!!

Even though I wasn’t really hurt, he had just seen his mama get hit by a car. He’s way more sensitive than he lets on. Monkey did not calm down until I was safely in the car.

By the way, I plan to lead every conversation with, “I got hit by a car,” at least for a couple of days.

Fortunate. Unfortunate. The Prairie Family has terrible luck or incredibly good luck, depending on how you look at it.

The air conditioner at the House started malfunctioning on Saturday. This is July. In Oklahoma. Absolutely, positively the month that no one wants the air conditioning to go on the blink. It’s something to do with the condenser pump, I think. Before the repairman showed up Saturday morning, we were able to get the pump to work and the air conditioner to run. So we cancelled. Then we did our shopping (local produce and meats) and dropped by the Apple Store to check on iPhones. No dice.

So we went home to a cool House and planned a day trip to Oklahoma City for the next day. By Sunday morning the air conditioning was malfunctioning again. The repairman never returned our call so we turned it off, closed up the House, and headed out. This past weekend was the mildest July weekend I have ever experienced in Oklahoma, so we figured that things wouldn’t get too unbearable in the House. We’d be back just about the time when day was fading into night and the temperature falling.

Things didn’t go according to plan. The drive up on I44 was uneventful, minus the occasional backseat outburst. Things didn’t start to go awry until we got to the Apple Store. Last year, when the first iPhone was released, Hubby walked into the store on the Sunday following and walked out with an iPhone not ten minutes later. This year was a bit different. There was no way I was taking Monkey and Pumpkin into the Apple Store, so we did a little shopping in Pottery Barn Kids. Then we went to the Food Court to eat lunch. Big mistake.

When I saw that line at the one and only fast food joint the kids were willing to entertain, my heart sank. I just knew that waiting in that line with those kids was destined to end in sorrow. I was right. Maybe the children were really as awful as they seemed to be, or maybe I was just magnifying normal but rowdy behaviors into monstrosity because of the stress of waiting with two hungry kids in the longest lunch line ever. When the end was in sight, after about a jillion years, some dude decided he was going to take advantage of my seeming distraction and line-jump me. With all eight of his family members in tow.

He picked the wrong mean mama to mess with, at the wrongest possible time! This happens to me a lot. I’m short, I’m a mom, I’m not hot, so therefore, I am invisible. But something in me snapped. “Sir!” I said to him. Nothing. Louder, “Sir!” still nothing. Finally, in my best drill-sergeant-mama voice, I yelled, “SIR! I WAS NEXT!” I can’t make my son stand still and quiet in public, but I can make a grown man tuck tail and slink away! I do not believe that is a mistake he will ever make again.

I was too shaken to eat, but I got food into the kids. By the time they were finished and cleaned up, Hubby had his new phone and we left to go procure lunch for ourselves.

We’ve been to OKC many, many times, and I even have family there, so we are fairly familiar with the general lay-out. I wanted us to take Route 66 home, all the way from Edmond, so I could take pictures of the Round Barn in Arcadia, but alas it was not to be. At least not yet. Since we had to go through Edmond anyway, we pulled into a Sonic there to eat. We ordered, our food arrived, and Hubby turned off the car. And immediately turned it back on for the air conditioning. It was our undoing.

Now, I have never heard automatic weapons fire in real life, only in the movies or on TV, but something began making a loud, repetitive noise, “BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!” We thought somebody was shooting at us until I noticed red-brown “smoke” kicking up from under our car. Hubby turned off the car and made me get out to see what made the racket. I ask you, why am I always the one who has to look under the car? I don’t know anything about cars! Oh yeah, I’m not the one with the hurt back. Anyway, I could see a black hose dangling loose off the underside and a piece of black hose that had apparently shot off as shrapnel lying on the ground next to the car. The poor people in the next car over were visibly shaken but pointing, and trying to help. There was a puddle of apple-green stuff under the dangling hose. This could not be good.

I borrowed a phone book, called a wrecker, and my uncle. He drove his SUV to the Sonic, helped us load the baby seats into it, and graciously took us into his home. The wrecker followed us there, where we parked our poor, sick car.

But while we were waiting for all these things to transpire, I had time to think about our predicament. O.K., bemoan our predicament. I kept wondering what somebody or something was trying to tell us, tell me. And what that information might be. Why would such a string of bad luck hit us? Just last week, I had to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get the front end of the car fixed like new. Then the House A.C. breaks, then the car breaks down, while we’re out of town! Woe is me! Woe is us!

I am a big believer in the power of the mind and the power of the spirit. We shape our own reality through our thoughts. If you look for bad things to happen, you’ll find them. And not to sound like a Pollyanna, if you expect good things to happen, then good things will happen. To a degree. No amount of positive thinking was going to keep the car from breaking down; all the negative thoughts in the world can’t make an air conditioner break down. I have seen the power of prayer, but prayer is not some incantation that will magically fix broken machinery.

After much thought, it occurred to me that we didn’t suffer a run of bad luck, we benefited from an extraordinary concatenation of positive events that ameliorated the negative effects of bad stuff that was going to happen anyway. Our car broke down while we were away from the House, but just a handful of miles from my aunt and uncle. A week from now, they won’t be there, so how incredible to find them at home. We passed a decent repair shop on our way to their house. The repair shop was able to fix our car early Monday morning, so we were able to leave for Tulsa just after noon.

And about our House air conditioning? After sitting dormant for almost two days, it came back on and worked well enough to keep us and the kids comfortable until the repairman arrived this morning. Only a new air filter and some cleaning and servicing had to be done, no major repairs.

During what promised to be the hottest part of the day, we were stranded in Edmond, in my aunt and uncle’s air conditioned home. The babies got to sleep in cool comfort, not in a stuffy, hot House.

Oddly enough, it was a high-pressure air-conditioner hose that caused that BANG-BANG-BANG sound. And the red-brown smoke? Just some of central Oklahoma’s famous red dirt.

So, you see, it’s all in how you look at it.