We started off the weekend on Friday with a buying trip to North Carolina. We had caught the bills up and carefully budgeted the trip so that we could go and still have money to buy horses. I had packed our lunch and dinner.
I was up at 4 am and we hit the road at 6 am. Yawn!! It is a 4 hour trip and we wanted to be there early. I had gotten about 3 miles down the road when I realized that I didn’t have the cell phone. I turned around and went back after it. I wouldn’t want to take that long a trip without it.
Everything went well all day Friday. The weather was great if hot. The trip up was uneventful and by late fridaynight, had bought two beautiful horses and was back at the hotel. It was very late and I was very tired. I fell into bed and slept for a few hours. At 7 am, I was up and headed back to the barn to check on the horses. I fed and made sure that all was well and then headed back to the hotel.
That would have been when the trouble started. The cell phone was missing. I checked the whole hotel room over and it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the truck. I checked the hotel lobby thinking that maybe I set it down when I went up to get coffee. I tried calling it from the room and listening for it. The only place left to look was at the barn.
After breakfast, I headed to the barn to load the horses and find the phone. The horses loaded fine but there was no phone. Giving up on finding the phone, I climbed into the truck and started it up. I put it in gear, gave it a little gas and didn’t move and I mean not even an inch.
The transmission was gone. Boom. It had acted up the week before but straightened out after adding fluid. I had a mechanic drive it to check it out plus a couple of friends who are experienced with mechanical things. They all thought it would be fine, that it was just low on fluid. Apparently, everyone was wrong.
So here I am 4 hours from home with a trailer full of horses, a broken down truck and no cell phone. Oh boy! The barn was getting ready to close for the day so I quickly borrowed the phone to call home. I got in touch with R’s son and his girlfriend and told them to find someone to come get me and the trailer.
And then I sat there all day, waiting and not knowing if someone was coming or not. I did spend some time walking the parking lot looking for the phone. I walked up and down the road in case I had set it on the truck and it had bounced off. I rode the horses. I waited and waited. The security guard checked on me every hour or so but mostly, I waited.
After 6 hours, my friends made it to the barn. I was mightily glad to see them and mightily grateful to them for giving up their weekend to come get me. We headed home and arrived at about 11 o’clock minus one truck and one cell phone.
This week I have been dealing with suspending service to the cell and trying to get estimates on fixing the truck. When it was all said and done, it looked like it was going to be a little over a thousand dollars to rebuild the transmission. The cell phone is suspended until I can either find it or afford to buy another one.
The good news is that after deciding that there was no way that we could pay to have the transmission rebuilt, I got on the computer and found a rebuilt transmission for $250. I had someone interested in one of the horses I bought so I had a quick sale and got the money to buy it. It was another 90 mile drive to pick it up but we should save $750 to $1000 on it.
So once again, I have taken one step ahead and two steps back.
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Glad your friend came to get you.
Looks like you might need to get a blue tooth for your phone that way you don’t have to hold your cell and miss place it the next time around.
I still can’t believe I lost it. In 10 years, I have never lost a cell phone and I used to have to carry two,one for work and one personal one. It is either in the car or in my purse. I don’t use it that often so I don’t carry it around very much. You might be right about the blue tooth but it seems like quite an expense for something I might use twice a month.
Sorry about the transmission – one of those unexpected expenses that I hate most!
Phi, I would have a heck of an emergency fund if I would just stop having emergencies.
Doesn’t sound like two steps back – just sounds like life
You actually were able to generate the money for the repair from the sale of one horse, so you have the repair covered. The phone is a major inconvenience, but you can live without it til you get that covered also.
All in all, sounds like it could have been a lot worse… you could have been in the middle of nowhere with the horses when the truck quit…and no phone around to borrow…. So look at the positive side… you and the horses are ok and you were safely rescued. The truck will be getting fixed soon, and you came out of it pretty much intact. Hang in there!
Yeah true – if you don’t use your phone very often then it wouldn’t make sense to buy a blue tooth.
I guess it’s just one of those things we all have to be more careful about – I hate it too when I miss place things as well.