Saturday, April 17, 2010

Science Center Visit & Baby Bats

So Thursday, before preschool, Julian somehow managed to convince me to take him to the science center, after preschool! He reallllllly wanted to see the baby bat that they have in a cave. (For the record that bat is fake. But he loves it.) The cave is dark and spooky, with bat sounds. It freaks Gabe out. Julian? The little creep loves bats. And bugs, and snakes and boy things. Gross.

We went, had fun at the science center, after a delicious lunch at Palmer's Deli with daddy. For those of you in Des Moines, or those of you that visit Des Moines sometimes (HEATHER!) you have to try it! It gets crazy busy at lunch time, but I loooove their Caesar Salad.

We took my car, a 2002 Ford Explorer, to the dealership to get the air conditioner recharged. We had to go to Target after the drop off to pick up my antibiotic, and got a trauma inducing phone call from the dealership.
Ford Guy-"Hi is this Barry Palizzi?"
Barry-"Yes, this is Barry."
FG-"HI. There's a leak in your air conditioner, it's leaking freon into (insert some car part here). It's going to be $925 to fix it."
B-Stunned silence. "Uhm, wow. Oh. Wow. Uhm, well we can't afford $925 right now."
FG-"Oh. Well, ok yeah. We'll get it put back together then."

I'd done some research. And by research asked my friends on facebook about the cost to recharge an air conditioning. You see, they all said about $200. Which we can afford, and were expecting. I'd also learned from my friend Chrissy that an air conditioning system is a closed system. Which means that if it stops working, duh, there's a leak. You see, her husband is a mechanic. And he said that they can just recharge it.

Once Barry relayed this info to me, I told him what he needed to say to the mechanic.

"I realize that an air conditioning is a closed system, and that there is a leak, or else it would still work. Please just refill the freon, and we'll take our chances with the leak."
FG-"Well we can't guarantee that it won't just leak out tomorrow."
B-"I realize that."
FG-"OK. We have to fix a recall thing, so it'll be a little while longer."

Fast forward to 10:30 pm (our kids were still awake because we had to drive to the dealership to pick up my car.)
FG-"It didn't leak out!"
B-"Good."
FG-"So it will be $117. Your car takes 33 (some form of measurement) and we only had to put in 19."

And guess what? My a/c works! This preggo can not survive 100+ weather, with a million % humidity without a/c! I told Barry he owes me $800...he didn't like that idea very much.

So we went to bed, and my kids slept all glorious night! And then we woke up to this:
DSC_0001-1

Yeah. In the words of Julian, (who was sleeping while the eviction took place) "Mommy! Is that the bat from the science center? Or is it Laura's bat?" LOL! I told him it was the one from the science center. Because I knew it would make him happy. It did. And he still feels proud of the bat that came to visit. Barry and I? Not so much.

Thank GOD Barry was home to deal with this situation. I would have left the house and not come home. Seriously. Barry took a bucket and a piece of cardboard and MacGuyver'd this little guy out of our house! He is now back home in his bat cave. And this morning, you'd better believe I tip toed downstairs, I didn't want to have a repeat of yesterday!

1 comment:

Kira - oopsicraftmypants.com said...

I love this post, for so many reasons! That's fantastic that the car fix didn't cost as much as you thought, I love when stuff like that happens! And the bat!!! I personally would have secretly loved to have a bat sneak into my house, but would pretend to be grossed out by it :)