Dethroned: Long live the King of Dumbassery

We were a mile from the Monrovia exit off Interstate 70, headed to Aunt Donna's for a little Labor Day weekend fun with the family when the mantle of dumbassery that I'd been wearing for the past few weeks shifted about eight inches up and three feet over to my left.

Jeff was driving, beating on the steering wheel in apparent beat to some crazy music he was playing. Ali was in the back with her headphones on. I was scanning my phone when I heard the herald call of change.

Or rather, I heard Jeff exclaiming "Whoa! That's not good." And the car slowed rapidly from its 70+ mph speed. Our reliable, safe Subaru Outback was completely out of gas.

Do you know what happens when you run your Subaru out of gas? Even when you get a quick ride into town to get a gas can and gas and then luck into another ride back to your stranded car, the car won't start up.

Or at least ours didn't. Jeff was following instructions from the Interwebs to turn the key and prime the gas pump when an off-duty, Indiana State Trooper pulled up behind us. He was headed to a family gathering himself but took the time to give us an extra buffer from the holiday traffic and even called us a tow truck.

When we got to the nearest gas station, our friendly tow truck driver was prepared to get the car down to the pumps but he had Jeff try to start it first. The silence that followed the turn of the key indicated to the tow guy that there was more wrong with the car than no fuel.

Or maybe he liked the idea of a tow into the city. With no service station open until next week, and zero expertise in what to do to repair a car in the shape ours is in, we opted for the tow.

It's been a while since I was crammed into the cab of a truck and rode for miles without a seatbelt on but desperate times call for desperate measures. I was just happy that I didn't have a desperate need of a bathroom. We had further good luck that Becca, my latest niece to be a Butler Bulldog, was still in Indy and would come collect us from our downtown service shop.

It was a spectacular start to the holiday weekend.

It took Jeff more than an hour to stop with the self-flagellation. He was so unhappy with himself, I couldn't even comment. (Or take a fun picture.) He readily (but not cheerfully) agreed to accept his crown as the King of Dumbassery.

"If we're only counting today, then yes," he said. "I'm definitely the winner."

I'm going with that. In the Kingdom of Dumbassery, the ruler is the one who's committed the most recent stupid thing. Deciding the crown based on number of incidents or the cash cost to the household would just be dumb.

The towing bill for when I stuck my Mustang on the curb outside Zheng Garden was less that this one. I'm salvaging the pot I almost ruined when I boiled those eggs into charcoal. No one died and no fixtures were harmed when I accidentally brewed mustard gas when cleaning toilets. (twice.)


Among the several bright spots of our latest experience was remembering that we had an extra large snack back as we were going down to Donna's. Ali and I survived the wait for gas by eating the leftover pound cake we'd planned to share with my family. (It was really good.)

Jeff cracked a craft beer as we waited for Becca in the parking lot of All Star Tires, the service station we use that's closest to Jeff's downtown office.

So anyway, we're back home. Safe and sound. Thanks to all the good people who helped us get here.

Hope your weekend is better than the start to ours...