Car Troubles

The day was moving along just fine. I was so excited because it was time for me to pick the boys up from their after school program. I love the feeling of knowing I'm about to be reunited with my kids after a long day. It makes me a little bit giddy -- even though they usually start arguing in the car ride home. On the days I have to go into my office, my routine is something like this. I take the train, walk home, then I swing by the house, let the dog out, pick up the car, and then Storm and I go on a ride to get the boys (poor guy's been home by himself all day, after all). We made to after-school, picked up the boys, and everything was moving along just fine. But then....

after about a mile, we started smelling a horrible burning smell and tons of smoke. I thought it was one of the cars around me, but it wasn't going away. All I kept thinking about was "just get me home so I can deal with this!" After all, I had slap-happy kids, a dog without a collar or leash on in the car and no husband around. In the meantime, I was checking my car gages to see if something was overheating (but didn't notice anything). And the kids were yelling at me telling me how bad this was for the environment. But I wasn't stopping. By this point, I may have even rolled down the window and yelled at some bikers to get out of the way because my car was smoking (they were being really poky). And another lady may have said something about fire. But I was only seven blocks away from my house! About two blocks after that, suddenly the car "freed" up. It was like something was blocking something (I know a lot about cars, as you can clearly tell). I looked in the rear view mirror, and there it was, laying in the street. A blue UHaul blanket! It had been in our garage, must have gotten stuck under the car and started burning! The strange thing was, no one stopped me! Not even the police car I drove by in my stinking smoking car). I didn't notice anything hanging down when I approached the car after the picking the boys up. I have no idea where it was hiding. After the blanket fell onto the street, I still didn't stop. We got home, I put the dog inside, and the boys and I went back to the scene. By foot. Someone had moved the blanket to the alley. I picked it up to bring it back to our garbage. About two blocks into our walk, H informed me it was still smoking. Needless to say, we came home and doused it with water and the car is sitting outside the garage for the evening. I mean, really. Have you ever heard of something like this happening?

In hindsight, I should have pulled over as soon as I noticed the smoke. I mean, that stupid blanket could have easily gone up in flames, taking us with it. We are pretty lucky, if you ask me.