TGIF

In one week we'll be in our new place.  Gulp.  So much still to do. 

So...while hubby is watching soccer on the t.v., I'm stalling on my computer!  That's how it's done, right?

I'm moved to tell a story that is well known in my family: my sister's birth in a VW Bug in 1960.  Yeah, you thought Bugs were just for getting around in, didn't you?  Who knew they were an excellent field hospital?

Mom calls dad at work to say she's in labor.  She's got 2 kids that need to be taken to the sitter while she and dad get to the hospital.  He comes home, we pile into the car and off to the sitter's we go.  I don't remember any of this, being 2.5 years old. It must've been quite a scene with mother in full-on labor in the front seat.

So dad's taking us into the sitter's house, and while he's doing this, out comes my sister and onto the floor.  When dad comes back to the car and sees what has transpired, he panics and figures the baby is dead.  She must've been crying or something, and yet his belief is that a baby born outside of a hospital is toast.  He jumps in the car and blasts off for the hospital.  He's stopped by a cop for speeding.  The cop takes one look inside and says, "Follow me."  He gets an escort.

He arrives at the front door of the hospital, runs inside to get help.  While he's doing this, mom's ob/gyn pulls up, sees the car, sees what's going on.  He jumps in the car to drive mother around to the Emergency entrance.  Dad runs out with nurses (one presumes) and the car is gone.  His wife and newborn (dead) baby are gone.   What fresh hell is this?

They figure it out, finally, and dad is reunited with his wife and very much alive baby daughter.  The doc pulls him aside and advises him to go home and hose out the car - quickly - as all that birthing blood and liquid will be a bear to get out if it's allowed to dry.  So he does.  And the neighbors are baffled: why the heck is he at home hosing out the car?

We drove that car around for several more years.  It was involved in another notorious episode in which my older sister and younger sister were settled in the car waiting for dad to come out of the house.  My older sister let go of the emergency brake (just for ducks) and the car began to roll downhill.  At the end of our street was a canyon.  Yup.  A canyon.  My older sister jumps out of the car to avoid going over the cliff and the car ran over her, which caused it to turn into a driveway just before the canyon's edge.  The story goes she did it to save our little sister.  I think she just didn't want to die.  In any case, she was relatively uninjured and the baby was safe as well.

Imagine my dad's surprise when he comes out of the house to find that damn car gone - again.  What's with this car?  What bad juju spirit is this? 

To think I could've been an only child.