So, I leave the house, destined for B&N so that Luke can bring me to work. I arrive, go in and find him, and we gleefully head back to the car. As I raise one foot to step into the thing, Luke starts the car and it utters a loud bang followed by that horrible hole-in-the-muffler sound.

�Uh, honey?� I say, �What is that?� He lowers his head, shaking it, rolls his eyes, and says �Muffler.� I respond with, �No, the muffler is in the back. That was a front sound.� So, he removes the keys, pops the hood, and we take a gander. I�m gazing on, looking to see if anything is amiss, when I notice that three, not four, spark plugs are engaged and countable. The fourth was lying across the headlight cover, having popped out of its socket, flown at the closed hood, dented it, and come to rest there. Requests are made of Luke�s coworkers as to whether they happen to have a socket wrench in their cars, a phone is borrowed and my work is called, me saying that I shouldn�t be too late, it�s just a spark plug that need to be put back in. Coworkers don�t have socket wrenches and so the walks all over creation begin. Luke walks to the nearby Firestone to see if he can borrow one. No. He returns defeated and we trek across the monstrous parking lot to Sears where they tell us they can�t say what size our car will take, why don�t we go over to the auto center across the parking lot? Trudge to the auto center. �No. We can�t. We don�t do engine work here.� Back to Sears proper. Purchase an el cheapo �auto repair� kit with a socket wrench and the two sizes of socket that were not included in the kit. Back to the car, through traffic and much ogling by passersby. I put the keys on the dashboard and Luke goes to check on the spark plug replugging. We need an extender bar and now the keys are missing. I send Luke to buy the extender bar while I search my pockets, my purse, my knitting bag, under the seat, the floor, feel around on the dash, only to realize that the car had been jostled just enough to send the keys down the vent after using one of the old wiper blades down to investigate. Fuck. Luke returns and I report both the good and bad news, while he says that ShopKo has no extender bar, so he has to go back to Sears.

I commence taking apart the glove compartment, the dashboard, pulling out the passenger side front speaker, feeling around in all the disintegrating foam and dead bugs, only to discover that the ventilation system is essentially self-contained. Luke returns and I throw up my hands, frustrated and in tears. He gets the spark plug back in and takes a crack at extrication. No luck. He goes back to ShopKo to see if they have magnets. No. I call a locksmith through AAA.

15 minutes later, the locksmith arrives and starts fiddling around. He tells Luke that if the key cannot be retrieved, it will cost $125 for an ignition key; $75 after the AAA discount. I get more flustered and Luke goes in to say that he�s done for the day, the car is still troubled, and calls my work to say that I may not be in after all. So, after much tearing out of various bits of the car, the locksmith gets our keys, plus those of G, who once upon a time dropped keys down there without knowing it. They had been in there so long that they had oxidized. I thank the locksmith profusely and tip him a 20.

To work I go. 3 hours late, but there nonetheless. Fast forward to 7ish. I am sick to my stomach and have to race to the bathroom. I think I�m fine afterwards and am able to finish out the rest of my shift. Luke and I get dinner and drive home, hoping that the car doesn�t explode with us in it on the way. Once home, the story recounted, my stomach freaks again and this time it�s a photo finish.

We shower, I start a hat for myself, and we go to sleep, sexless for the 2nd or 3rd night in a row. I sleep soundly for a time, but end up being horribly plagued by a continuing nightmare all night long. I woke myself up at 6, curled into Luke, told him what happened, and just cried. To make it all worse, it just continued once I was able get back to sleep. I was so stressed in my sleep that I woke up with a sore jaw and what felt like a blister on the roof of my mouth. I must have been clenching my jaw and sucking really hard on my tongue.

I dreamt that he no longer loved me, that he had begun sleeping with my sluttiest high school friend and expected me to share him with her. I chose not to go with that, but had nowhere else to go, so had to live in the same house with this mess. I kept crying in the dream, asking him what had happened to make him fall out of love with me, wondering when he had stopped being interested in me. �Pretty much the day we met.� was his response, blood chillingly deadpan. He ended up asking me back in the very end before I finally woke for the day, but I was still super spooked and have kind of been all day. Luke, in reality, has been wonderful about it. He spent the day giving me hugs and kisses and being playful, telling me that he will love me forever no matter what.

So, that was yesterday. It sucked.

Luke is considering dropping to part time as soon as next week. His manager asked him yesterday if he�ll both do an overnight on Sunday (essentially saying that he�d end up working 10 days straight after they�ve just gone and fucked him out of an actual weekend semi-permanently) and close Monday so that they can get things in order for the New York bigwig coming in. Luke is saying no to Sunday and insisting that if he has to close Monday that they alter Tuesday for him so that he can at least sleep Monday night. I fully support his move to part-time since he�s getting closer and closer to throwing the towel in altogether. Plus, it shouldn�t be too bad. We�ll get to spend more time together and he can probably grab a few hours at my work very soon, what with a coworker going on vacation soon and all.

Today, I plan to work on my hat, watch some TV, straighten our bedroom, do some laundry, and just relax since I have to work tomorrow again. It�s been a very long week and I am more than ready for it to end.