Single mom with the check engine light on

Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug.

That’s the sound my car made when I started it leaving work this evening. A rattling spinning heavy noise that certainly doesn’t belong there, and then… it was gone.

And then, less than half a mile down the road as I called the Toyota dealership to schedule a service appointment…the check engine light popped on.

I should have called for service weeks ago, I know this. But there’s always something. Evenings are filled with picking up kids and meetings and school stuff. There’s rarely a night to just go home and stay home, something’s always gone on. Weekend hours at the service shop fill up fast, as you’d expect, and my weekends fill up with activities too – gymnastics runs, events, this thing, that thing.

Suddenly glug glug glug and a check engine light.

And that was after finding my car completely dead this morning when I went to leave for work, having apparently not shut my door all the way before I went out of town for the weekend. I can only blame myself, of course, for leaving the door ajar. The battery, completely drained, required a jumpstart, which required looking up a YouTube video on just how on earth you jumpstart a Prius anyway and calling my stepdad because what the hell am I supposed to jumpstart my car with when my only car is dead?

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It gets a bit tiring sometimes – all of the stuff. And while I dig parenthood, and love the groove I have with my kids, what gets especially tiring is the stuff: car maintenance, securing the trampoline so it doesn’t fly out of the yard during a windstorm, finding time to workout between work and mom taxiing and the sun setting, the cooking the cleaning the clothes washing the… you get the point.

There’s inherently so many things to do to keep a home and family running and for the most part? I’m doing it all.

And I’m so tired.

Sometimes something’s gotta give and that something is that you don’t mop your kitchen floors every week.

All too often, that something is ignoring an oil maintenance light until a series of unfortunate events leads to glug glug glug and that bright ominous check engine light and ugh oh my god how badly did I just screw myself procrastinating this one?

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I’m built of pretty tough stuff but I’m tired. Today, I am fantasizing about the idea of a concierge service – one that can swoop by my office, pick up my car and take it to the dealership while I sit at my desk in my office, churning away on projects that are so time-sensitive I haven’t taken time off to get to the damn service department in the first place. On their way back, they’ll pick up my groceries and maybe they’ll call my car insurance and make my first quarter insurance payment before it’s due on Monday.

We are not supposed to glorify busy – or so they say – but my god, I am busy and I’m kind of sick of it.

I’d drop a rope if I could tell which one was which – but since I can’t, I hang on to them all, hoping I don’t screw up too badly.

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I am hopeful that the noise isn’t an expensive one. I can say that I’ve learned my lesson – that next time, I’ll just take time off for the appointment, and place a priority on keeping my car running smoothly and in good condition.

But I know better.

I suspect, much like my car, that somewhere and somehow, my own virtual check engine light is on.

I figure that, like my car, I missed one or two other signs that it was time to make time to tune things up.

Tomorrow, they’ll hopefully find the source of the noise and repair it and maybe it won’t cost me an arm and a leg and I’ll drive out of there lighter in wallet and quieter in car.

My own repair might not be as easy.