Damn voice in my head.

It all starts with wanting a new purse. I need a new one. While I love the little one I have (perfect size for most of what I carry), my camera won't fit in the itty bitty thing. And I have come to discover in the last few months that I MUST carry it with me everywhere now. This last week I have forgotten the camera for bowling, kite flying, movies and today's adventure. It would have been much more memorable with pictures.

Today arrives and we get ready for our trip to our friends in Manhattan. I decide this would be good time to wax my eyebrows. The voice in my head starts going off and she is LOUD.

"Maybe you should just tweeze a little and do it later on"
"It'll be fine, just a touch up"
"Fine go ahead, do whatever you want just like you always do."

I did. First strip was fine. On the second however, when I pulled the strip off it hurt. What did I do? This doesn't hurt this much. I look in the mirror and to my horror I have pulled off half the middle of my right eyebrow. Holy Shit. I look like I did this drunk. For once I'm thankful for the damn huge eyebrows and that my bangs usually cover that eyebrow. My voice laughs. I figure today can't get any more difficult since I've already mildly disfigured myself.

The voice gives me the cross armed whatever look.

"Hey take your camera"
"I don't need it today"
10 minutes later, "HEY! Take your camera"
"Don't need it."

And again with the look. How can a voice give you a look?

We leave for Manhattan and the kids are great for the ride. We get outside of Newton and tune the radio to hear about the construction on the highway. Delays. Go through McPherson. Marc and I discuss it and decide to go our normal route.
Voice again, "Hey, you should go through Gossel"
"We'll be fine"
"Whatever."

Traffic is okay and there aren't any problems until we get to Florence. The road from Florence to Marion is closed since they are doing construction work on it.
"Go around, it will just be a little longer"

I ignore this when Marc asks me if we can get to the lake taking back roads. Which from where we were, you can. I vaguely remember which roads to take.
So we drive. It has rained like everyday this past week. These roads were dirt. With little gravel. We drive an Impala. Disaster is looming.

We get closer and find a road that looks familiar. We can go straight or left. Left looks muddy so I say straight.
"We need to go left", voice says.
"It will be fine".


The road got muddier. I'm thinking we should turn around, then Marc says maybe we should turn around. We didn't. The kids are starting to get a little freaked out. The car fishtails. Marc swings it back around and we stop.

6 inches of mud. In the middle of no where.

Crap. Voice laughs. She laughs maniacally.

So we try to get unstuck and call my mom. Then we call back when we realize that she will get stuck in her truck. Marc is now coated in mud and really frustrated. Now I'm laughing.

Voice again, "Hey, where's your camera?"
"Shut up."

We call the wrecker.

"Well where are you?"
"130th and Vista." In the background I hear someone say "I wouldn't want to be there".
"Well, neither do I but here I am".
"I don't have four wheel drive so call me back and I'll see what I can do".

While I wait I call our insurance company since we have roadside assistance. Turns out it is PAVED roadside assistance. As we were more than 10 feet from the side of a paved road they weren't going to come out.

I call the wrecker and he says someone will be out there and it will cost $125. Not like we have a choice. We wait. The kids eat all the chips and chex mix we had and started to get restless. I had to pee in the bushes since I thought coffee would be a good idea this morning. Voice laughs again.

Finally, after about an hour of trying to get out, two guys show up in their truck. The way they were driving around I assumed they were just out mudding. They were, sort of. Turns out they were from Markley's Service. After making sure they weren't going to get stuck they towed us out. They told me that the voice in the background from earlier, was the sheriff. Great, glad he thinks it was funny.

They were just hanging out at Markley's and just wanted something to do today. Our only payment to them was to do a good deed later. We got a free rescue and they got a funny story for the day. (Which was shared all over town. Grandpa heard it at coffee later and asked mom what the hell I was doing.)

Once again we are on our way and get stuck from Marion to Junction city behind an oversize tractor trailer. There isn't enough room to pass the whole caravan so we just stuck it out.

The rest of the day was better and enjoyable. We had a really late lunch with Conner, picked up our gaming models and sold our war gaming terrain on eBay. But, I still need a new purse.