Morphing into The Griswolds - The Conclusion

It is surprisingly difficult to launch a recovery mission when you are travelling in a car, you are almost two hours away from your place of residence, your broken car is in one location, the keys to the broken car are in yet another location and you are trying to accommodate an elderly relative from interstate and two young children.

As you might well imagine, The Coach and I were busy racking our brains for a solution. Our usual first port of call for a broken down vehicle, the RACQ, generally assumes that you and your broken down vehicle are in the same place. Clearly our circumstances fell into the unusual category. We made a list of local friends who owed us favours (0). We made another list of friends we could potentially bribe with the lure of alcohol and/or chocolate (many). We tried contacting the first of our friends on our Bribe List and discovered (most inconveniently) that Wilderness Man, who also happens to be an airline mechanic (plane, car, much of a muchness right ?) had chosen that very morning to take off for a three day fishing and camping trip. Bummer.

It was only as The Coach declared for the sixty-seventh time that he was turning the car around, that I realised fortune was favouring us with a small break. Only one week earlier I had employed the services of a local mobile mechanic to service my car and I suddenly noticed his sticker in the top right corner of my windscreen, with a mobile phone number listed, hallelujah.

Calls were made....many calls....but by the time we arrived in Noosa, plans had been set in motion and we were reasonably confident that everything would turn out okay. Yes, the kids managed to score two days off school whilst the car was getting repaired. Yes, we now had an unexpected extra expense tapped on to the cost of our holiday. But it was a small price to pay.

As we walked into the local pizzeria that evening I discovered that our luck had indeed changed. Mojito night. Bonus. Nothing better then a mojito or five to take your mind off car issues. I embraced holiday mode with such gusto that three hours later I was embracing the toilet bowl after having fertilised the manicured gardens of Noosa with my own special blend of pizza and white rum. It's klarsy with a capital 'K' when you take a bit of Gold Coast magic to Noosa let me tell you.

The next afternoon, after I had managed the enormous trek from the bed to the couch, I decided to check in with Nanny B. Le Artiste answered the phone,

"Hi mum, are you having a nice holiday ?"
"Yes thank-you darling, but we're not talking in tin cans linked by string, if you could yell a little quieter, that would be great. How are things at home ?"
"Good. We're having two days off school and Nanny just finished talking to the policeman about dad's car."
(Oh dear God)
"The policeman ?"
"Yes, the policeman called because people thought that dad's car had been stolen and left in the middle of the road."
(I think I'm ready for another mojito)
"But Nanny sorted it all out."
"Yep, she told him the whole story....oh Nanny...."
"Oh no, what's happened now ?"
*sigh* "Oh dear mum, Nanny just tried to put water in the wrong end of the iron and it's gone all over the kitchen."
"Well I'll let you go and help Nanny out darling. I'll call you again later."
"Okay, bye mum."

"Coach, grab your wallet, I need another ten mojitos stat."