Wordlessful Wednesday: Something Is Wrong With This Picture

And these pictures too...

Not exactly the way we wanted to start our weekend last Friday.

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already saw a couple of these.

You may remember that Kyle got this boat awhile ago and it was in exchange for a side job that he's been doing for the past year or so.

He's driven the boat two places.

From the previous owners house to our house and from our house, to here:

Um, wrong destination, Boat!

On Friday afternoon / evening, we got in the car with the boat attached to the back. We were taking it over to Kyle's parents to have his dad look everything over before we put it in the water. The previous owners haven't had it on water in about 5 or 6 years.

Right as we were pulling out of our cul de sac, Kyle made the comment that he didn't feel comfortable taking it on the freeway yet, so we were going to take the back roads. Fine with me.

The boat is from 1973 and a "classic" and I don't know how old the trailer is, but it was a bumpy ride. The trailer needs shocks on it or something because the movement of the boat/trailer was making our car feel like it was bouncing.

I don't know much when it comes to all of this kind of stuff, trailers, boats, pulling things behind us, etc. so I just go with the flow and trust that Kyle knows what he's talking about.

So we're riding along, getting stuck in some of the rush hour traffic, but thankfully we were going the opposite direction of most people.

We get to the street where we're going to turn from the main street to a side street. The light turned yellow right as we got to it so Kyle didn't have to slam on the brakes but he had to stop harder than is ideal when you're trailing something. We felt a BUMP and I asked Kyle what it was and if it was ok. He said it was just the hitch doing something and that it was fine. We go to turn the corner and we have to go up a slight hill. I don't know why but right as we were turning and going up, I looked in the side mirror and "oh, Oh, Oh Oh Oh OHHHHHH!!!!!" came out of my mouth as I watched the boat slide off the trailer.

Boom, crash, Scrraaaaaapppppppeeeeeee.

Kyle stopped as soon as he could, right in front of Wendy's. We were blocking the exit from the drive thru, but thankfully people could still get out.

Kyle looked at the boat, looked at me and said "I don't even know what to do" with tears in his eyes. This boat is his BABY that he's been working his ASS off to get. And now it was lying in the street.

I told him I was going to call his dad. Oh and we were LESS THAN A MILE from his parents house!

I couldn't get my fingers and my phone to work together.

I finally did and I called my MIL.

She answered and I said, "THE BOAT JUST SLID OFF THE TRAILER IN FRONT OF WENDY'S!!!"

She says, "What?"

"THE BOAT. JUST SLID OFF THE TRAILER. IN FRONT OF WENDY'S!!!"

"Ok, I'll get Greg!"

Click.

A few minutes later they showed up.

A guy in a car drives up and tells us he's got a tow truck at home and he'll come back to help.

Three guys come to help. A father/son were eating in Wendy's and I don't know if the third guy was in Wendy's too and came to help or if he just came upon us and stopped to help. It doesn't matter, we were just so grateful!


On the way there, I had been texting with my friend Megan about one of our classes for Fall quarter. She'd been at the college, which is a couple miles from where this happened.

Standing there on the side walk, looking towards the main street, I see Megan drive by. She sees the boat in the street and a few minutes later she drives up and sees that it's ME and OUR boat. So she parked and came and stood with me while this whole ordeal was going on. Oh, and she'd never met Kyle or my inlaws. Nice way to be introduced, huh?!

A cop shows up shortly before the tow truck and Kyle tells him the tow truck is on it's way. The cop blocks off the road in both directions! Let me remind you, this is rush hour time! Everyone is going home. The road is blocked off and a detour is set up. Sucky!!

So, what happened to cause this whole thing?

All three straps broke!

Kyle had looked at them and thought that they looked a little haggard but he didn't think that they needed immediate replacement, just something that he'd get to before too long.

Obviously, the cinch {cuz it broke too} and the straps had other things in mind.




It had also been POURING all day and towards the evening it decided to clear up. Can you imagine dealing with this mess in the rain?



See the broken straps dangling?

When we first saw the tow truck, which if you can't tell, is a NICE one, my MIL turned to me and said "So that looks like it's about a $500 tow truck bill, huh?"

And I'm thinking, "we've got x amount of dollars in our account and I haven't paid the mortgage yet. How are we going to afford this?"

Let me just list off the MIRACLES of this whole incident:

1. Kyle had the gut instinct to not take it on the freeway. Can you imagine what could've happened if this had happened on the freeway? People could've been killed!

2. NO ONE was behind us when the boat slid off!!

3. A guy with a tow truck drives up almost immediately after it happened.

4. There are still kind people in this world that JUMPED to help a couple of strangers.

5. The tow truck driver DIDN'T CHARGE US!! He left before Kyle even got the chance to TRY to give him something! My MIL talked to him and he said to just give him a couple of "attah boys" if the chance arises! I don't even know the name of his company. R&R Towing or something like that?

6. There is no body damage! Just a couple of scratches and the rutter and something else need to be replaced, about $300 worth.

After we got in the car to drive to my inlaws, I turned to Kyle and I told him that Jesus was SO looking out for us. There are so many things that could've gone wrong and things could've been 1000 times worse!

For more Wordless Wednesday go to the WW HQ here.

For more Wordful Wednesday go to Seven Clown Circus.