Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

   So, a couple of months ago, Bubba and I decided that we would go on a date on a Friday night. Without The Kid. Well, what started as just dinner without ended it up as The Great 3 State Tour.

I talk to Bubba everyday at lunch. He calls me up, tells me about the idiots he spoke to that day and we have a good laugh at their expense. That Friday, Bubba says to me "Why don't we go somewhere this weekend? Ya know, without The Kid". What? Is that even possible? Can I convince someone to keep her for a whole two days or will I have to sit her on her grandparents doorstep, ring the doorbell and run like hell? All these possibilities considered, I agree anyway. We fly home Friday, pack our stuff and head for Nanny and Peep's (suckers). After spending the night there I wake up the next morning ready to plan out our weekend. But, plans are for sissies (or so Bubba tells me) so we just get a rough idea or where we would like to end up that night and hit the road.
It starts out good enough: we go do some shopping at the mecca of crazy-random-awesomness, The Unclaimed Baggage Store, grab some lunch and head to Chattanooga. This is when things begin to go... not as planned.
When we get to Chattanooga, Bubba asks me to look for a hotel. So, I get out my phone and search for the hotels I found on Friday who had more than enough rooms. Not so that day. Everything was booked. Now what do we do? "Let's go to Cherokee and go to the casino!" he says. Great idea! By the way this day was going I was going to need a free drink (or five). So, we get back on the road and head to North Carolina. About 10 minutes outside Chattanooga I ask Bubba "Do you think I should check rooms there first?" "Nah." he replies "We'll call when we're closer"
'Closer' ends up being about 45 minutes outside Cherokee. I call the casino, and guess what: No rooms. None in the casino or in any hotel in Cherokee. I begin to cry. 'Why?' you may ask. Well, because I'm 3oo miles from home and the prospect of sleeping in a Wal-Mart parking lot makes me break out in hives. I'm not 19 anymore ya know. This will not stand. After I finally calm down, we stop in a parking lot in a little town with 3 hotels. I call the first two to no avail. There's a rodeo in town and there are no rooms. Well, hell. Starting to freak out, I try the last one. Hallelujah! There is room at the [Holiday] Inn! We bust ass down there. It's not the Ritz, but frankly, I didn't give a rat's ass. It wasn't that god-forsaken Wal-Mart, so I consider it a win.
We get settled in and we do what any couple who has a small child and is alone together for the first time in over a year; we pick up some beer and Zaxby's and sit and watch a football game.
Compared to that rest of the trip was pretty uneventful:

• We learned that nothing is free at an Indian Casino

• We saw the exploitation of a proud people while buying authentic moccasins

• Found out that a 16 oz  glass bottle will, in fact, break after a 2 foot fall on a tile floor

• and we remembered what we used to do before The Kid came along.

All-in-all we had a great time. Yeah, we talked about The Kid, wondered what she was doing with out us (having an awesome candy-laced freak out at her Nanny's house), and missed her a bunch, but we spent some time not doing that too. We ate dinner when we wanted (even at places with no high chairs!), went where we wanted, and went to bed when we felt like it. It took an ill-planned trip to remember how fun it was to be a married couple, not just a mom and dad.

Automobile Gynocologist

I was only supposed to hold the light.
That's it. Just a light. But what started as me 'helping' ended up as me 'doing it all'. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning...
Bubba decided it would be a great idea to do some of our own minor car repairs. Now, to be fair, I completely supported this idea because, at the time, it did not include me doing anything at all. I was fine with him doing whatever he wanted to with the car as long as I wasn't around to screw anything up. I won't be held responsible for putting myself and/or The Kid in danger. Oh no, I need someone else to blame that on.
"I'm gonna go out and put this belt on while y'all get a bath ok?" Bubba yelled to me. I was sitting on top of the toilet in the hall bathroom watching The Kid play in the tub. "Sure" I reply. I should have jumped in the bathtub with The Kid right then, but I continued to sit there and read a magazine while the dog joined The Kid in her quest to drink every bit of the soapy water in the tub. Ten minutes later Bubba appears in the doorway. "Umm, hey. Can you come out here and help me? I need you to hold the light." "Ok. Let me get her out of the bath and put some clothes on her". With the baby dressed and put in her baby prison -er, I mean 'pack and play'- I threw on a sweatshirt and went out to the garage. Bubba's standing there with mechanic gloves on looking at me. "Can you hold the light right here? I can't see what I'm doing." I hold the light while he tries to mess with the serpentine belt. After about ten minutes of grunting, cursing and pulling he stops what he's doing. "Your hands are small. Do you think you could maybe get the belt just around this back part? My arms are too big to fit." What? No. He lured me out there under false pretenses. I was only supposed to hold a light! This isn't 'can you change these wiper blades?' or 'will you fill up the wiper fluid?', no, this is 'can you put this rubber strap over and under about 10 different wheels that make the car run?'. Crap. All I need to do screw up something and not only am I in trouble for breaking Bubba's car, but I will have broken the nice car. Oh well. It was his idea. I put on Bubba's XL mechanic gloves and put my hands down the side of the engine. "You feel that?" he says "Now, you're going to need to put the belt around that wheel and bring it back over the smooth one and around the smaller one with the grooves" he says. "What?! What the hell are you talking about?" "It's on the diagram I found on the Internet." he replies and points to the computer. Sure. You can also find a diagram on how to perform open heart surgery on the Internet, but that doesn't mean you should try it with out a medical degree. But, I'm either a good sport or a glutton for punishment so I look at the picture. It doesn't look that hard. If I can knit and braid hair, surely I can do this. Right? Well, it's too late to back out, so I dug in.
Fast forward about 20 minutes and a lot of wiggling and cursing, I'm laying on top of the engine shoulder deep in a Carolla. I swore that if I ever, ever get ahold of whatever moron... hold on. If I just moved a little to the left...there! "Hurry! Pull the tension!" I yelled. And just like that, I did it. I freaking did it. Me. After almost an hour violating that poor little foreign car I became the most bad-ass person on my block.