Up In Smoke

Thursdays generally are busy days for me. It's the end of the school week. I seem to have some running around to do. We always have an extra person at our house. Today was no exception.
Except Scott slept in this morning. He woke up at 4:00 am this morning and was running around like a madman. He had missed his ride. So that meant he had to take our one and only vehicle...
This is usually not a big deal but it caused me immediate stress. I was making lasagna for a friend and her family tonight...but the lasagna was still sitting in the freezer at M&M's.
I phoned Scott in the morning at work and he assured me he would make it home before 5 pm. I knew my lasagna plan was shot(sorry guys),but knew that I could still provide them with something just as tasty.(but not as fancy!)
When Scott came home I was in panic mode. I had 28 minutes to go downtown, grab the food, and deliver it. Furthermore, Scott was trying to do something with the MP3 player and was getting testy with me,because I couldn't help him with it.
So off I left...a woman on a mission.
I made it to Safeway and got what I needed. I was making awesome headway. I knew that the tacos I was planning to make at home would have to wait until I got home,but it isn't a problem to eat a little later than normal. I delivered the meal and knew I was way ahead of schedule.
So I decided to head back downtown to grab some milk and some odds 'n ends.
I was driving over the bridge and the van was starting to shake. It was odd...it was jerking along the road. I kind of thought it was my imagination.
Just to play it on the safe side I turned off my music(I think better when it's quiet) and started to pay attention to the vehicle. It was jerking.
Oh boy.
By this time I was at the overpass and thought I would just do a quick jaunt to Save On. The van jerked along. People were kind of giving me looks. I was driving by the theater and I started to smell smoke.
"I bet a building is on fire"I said to myself.
I drove into the parking lot and got out of the van.
"Boy that smell is really bad here?"I said...and looked around.
I was going to walk away when I noticed that smoke was coming up out of my tire.
Quickly I ran to the passenger side and sure enough the wheel was up in smoke.
I ran to the other side and started to panic.
I grabbed the cell phone and phoned Scott.
"Hello..."he answered.
"The van's on fire!"I yelled.
"What????" he cried.
"The wheel's smoking bad hun! It actually doesn't look like a fire!"I said. "What should I do?"
"Is it coming from the engine?"he asked.
"No...just the one wheel!" I answered.
"Call a tow truck..."he said.
"Yeah..you're probably right."I answered.
But being the brainiac that I am I decided that I didn't want to waste my visit to Save On More. I decided to get some of my shopping done.
When I finished the shopping I came out and the wheel was cool. I thought it was probably safe to make it home. We have a automotive shop directly across from our house.
So off I went. All seemed to be going good. The wheel was smoking,but I was jerking. Not big jerks, but little itsy bitsy jerks. If I would have had some rap music blaring I would have looked like those cars you see in the city with the back end jacked up and the back end just rocking up and down. Mamaliscious' van had gone rapaliscious!!
I drove like this all the way. People driving in the other lane were kind of giving me the ol' "hey lady do ya know you're doing the gangsta rap with your minivan?" kind of look. They looked shocked and scared.
I made it home...barely. I drove into our mechanics yard but he wasn't home,so I went to our house.
Scott came outside and I told him to take the van for a drive. He took it down the road and I started to laugh at our silver van doing the funky monkey down the road. It looked kind of funny, but at the same time...it freaked me out! What was wrong with our van???
So Scott returned and we both decided we had a problem.
Scott figured out it was a brake problem. The wheel was just smoking.
We went inside and we were sitting around and he said,"you didn't have the emergency brake on did you?"
"No...I never use the e brake."I replied.
But wait...
10 minutes later I said to Scott, "when I went up to bring the food up I might have put the e brake on...actually now that I think about it I am sure I put the e brake on!!"
So Scott and I went outside and he did a couple of pushes on the e brake release and decided to test it out. Sure enough I had forgotten to take off the e brake.
It makes sense why I was jerking and rocking down the road.
They certainly don't make them that good if you can drive down the highway with it on.
Oy....
That was a bit of my day...
I won't share any more with you all!
Hope you had a great day!
Jenny