My day started out quite benignly, with an early morning trip to the Ford dealer to have my oil changed. Craig stayed back to take Caroline to school so I could (hopefully) get in and out of the service center in a timely manner. I really hate taking my car to the dealer for oil changes; I'd much prefer Jiffy Lube or the like, but my tires have nitrogen in them, as opposed to regular air, and many oil change places are not equipped with the nitrogen to fill my tires. If I went to Jiffy Lube and they put air in my tires, I'd have to go to the Ford dealer and have them replace the air with nitrogen. So, as you can see, it's really best to just go to the dealer. Now that I've typed this out, I cannot for the life of me figure out why I was talked into the nitrogen in the first place. I think it had something to do with better gas mileage, but I could be mistaken.
Anyway, my wait at the dealer was LONG. Two cars were ahead of me in the oil change queue which, as it turns out, translates into a 1 hour and 45 minute wait. Once my car was done, I went to Caroline's school for my weekly date with the Thursday folders. Upon entering the parking lot, I was greeted with quite a disgusting smell: a cross between sulfur and natural gas. No bueno.
The office ladies said that they detected the smell yesterday, but it got progressively worse this morning. I didn't think much of it and went on upstairs to Caroline's class room. The minute I entered, the assistant principal told the teachers over the intercom to check their email. The email stated that the entire school would need to evacuate, a la fire drill style, to the parking lot. Did I mention it was pouring down rain? Before Caroline's class fled their room, I tried to file as many papers as I could, but I'm afraid I didn't get very far in to the process.
I probably *could* have gone home and nixed the whole standing in the chilly rain thing, but I didn't feel right leaving, especially if the fire department deemed it necessary to send the kids home. While the entire school wilted in the pouring rain, the fire men came and concluded that the smell was from a construction site nearby and the children/school were not in harm's way. The kids were shuffled back into the building, but I still hung around to make sure they were going back to their rooms; I also wanted to make sure Caroline wasn't feeling any adverse affects from the fumes. She was fine, but I wish I could say the same for a few of the other students and even a few teachers! One of the pregnant teachers was having a particularly hard time. Poor thing!
Once the kids were sent back to their classrooms, I went back upstairs to finish stuffing the folders. I would have felt bad if I didn't finish the job. The kids were all abuzz about the excitement and Caroline was especially annoyed that lunch was delayed by 35 minutes.
All in all, it was a very exciting experience. It seems I'm always around on fire drill/tornado drill/noxious, permeating fume days at Caroline's school. Hmm, perhaps it's true? Maybe I do have a black cloud that follows me where ever I go?
On the bright side, the noxious fumes hanging around Caroline's school have not followed me home. In fact, my house smells like apple pie right now. Between the apple cinnamon candle I'm burning and the apple pie crumble bars cooling on my kitchen counter, the aromatic scents of fall are intoxicating.
It really can never be said enough: I love fall!
1 comment:
Can I come over? Your fall atmosphere sounds lovely. I was decorating the house in fall festiveness when it was 80+ outside. Hard to feel fallish in shorts...although I think you shared a similar day at the pumpkin patch. However, today is cloudy and mid 60s with showers expected tomorrow thru Wed. YEA FOR FALL!
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