I paid off my car loan in February. It was a good moment. My car is a 2012, and the mileage is in the 160,000s. I had been hoping it will hold out until at least November. This week proved it to be a maybe.

There is a reason hope is a four-letter word. I had to drive my sons in my car down to our former town to see their father in the hospital. It is about an hour from Bethlehem, and most of the time I appreciate that distance. Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished. We left Bethlehem around 8 a.m. and about two-thirds of the way, the car started to smell strange. When we reached the hospital and opened the hood, a light plume of pale smoke came from the left front of the car. It dissipated as soon as I closed the hood.

So I sucked in some deep breaths, and took the boys to see their dad. Then, when we returned to the car, I called AAA. I pay for Premium AAA, for this exact reason.

So we settled in to wait for the tow truck. The estimate was one hour. Right about the hour mark, the tow truck driver called to explain he was just leaving Philadelphia and would be another hour.

He said I did not have to stay with the car. So I made a reservation for a rental, and we set off for the rental place on foot. Unfortunately, I had misread the address. So I called, and about 20 minutes later, a rental driver picked us up. I was relieved, and hoped we would get home soon. But it was not to be.

There were about four people ahead of us in line when the entire Enterprise computer system crashed. The employees could only wait for it to come back. They said it happened once or twice a year. It was just our bad luck it happened then.

I had already tried to reach out to friends and family to get a ride, but a lot of the people I knew in the area had moved away, too. And everyone else was busy. So we waited. And waited.

Finally, after another two hours, the system came back up, but we had spent almost the whole day for a 25-minute hospital visit. I joked that the next time the boys’ father was in the hospital, we would just video call him. Erick, my older son, did not find that funny.

We finally arrived home around 3:30 p.m. Erick had to go to work almost immediately. I made a late lunch for myself and James, my youngest. And then I did a time honored thing I learned from a cousin. When you are stressed, tired and overwhelmed, take a nap. So I did.