Extended

Car in the shop. Nothing in particular, just the 100,000 mile checkup, 7 weeks and 2300 miles late.

"Nothing in particular" came to quite a long list of things actually, when the shop called me an hour later with an estimate. Gulp.
"Should I itemize it out for you, so we can do some today and some of it later?" the mechanic asked me.
"No, do it all today!" I answered.

So at 2:15 I was dragging Monkey2 out the door to catch the city bus, to get Monkey1 from school. We made the bus and made the transfer, the right bus number but the wrong direction. I called the school while waiting to catch a bus back to the transfer point, to tell them I was having car trouble, taking the bus, "But it's going to be awhile... put her in Extended Day." Hopefully Mom not arriving would be a survivable trauma.

An hour after I had expected to arrive, Monkey2 and I reached school. I ran into a friend who pointed out, " 'Extended' is the thing they always beg for... I bet she's loving this." For children with prompt pick-up parents, Extended Day, the after-school care, is the holy grail. For children whose parents can not come at the usual school dismissal time, Extended Day is detested.

Indeed, Monkey2 had hated staying for Extended Day when I was coming back from Classical Conversations with Monkey1. She had called it "staying all week."

Monkey1, while glad to see me, had obviously had a wonderful time with her unexpected stay at Extended. Even better, we snagged a ride back to the auto shop with one of her classmates, comfortably sandwiching three kids in appropriate safety seats in the middle row of a SUV.

At the shop, no doubt impressed at my financial dedication to my nine-year-old 100,000+ mile car, the mechanic said he was looking forward to seeing it roll over 500,000 miles.
"Sure, why not?" I asked.
When I got in the Golf, I remembered why not... Monkey1 and Monkey2 are running out of leg room and putting their feet through the front seats.