If he doesn't enjoy this present, I may just go to bed and not get up for a long, long time

This past day (and night) has been consumed with my efforts to get Jason a birthday present (his bday is Saturday) that will knock his socks off the way his birthday present to me was a doozie.

I'm getting him a car.

He currently drives an old, beat-up Ford E150 van that gets about 12 miles to the gallon. The job he's working on is in Waikiki, about 25 miles away, so with the price of gas as high as it is, the cost of his commute is kicking us in the ass. We've been talking about getting a more fuel efficient car, like a hybrid or something, but even though we wouldn't be spending as much on gas, hybrids aren't cheap, so the net difference would be an increased financial outlay rather than actual savings.

But then the other day I was thinking about it and decided to look at used cars that aren't hybrids but that get really great mileage, like a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla. I figured if I could find a really cheap one, we might be able to save some money. I went on Cars.com and found an 8 year old Civic hatchback with only about 50,000 miles on it (practically brand new for a Civic -- I drove a Civic hatchback for nine years, and would have driven it another nine if I hadn't totalled it) for an insanely low price -- like, $2000 below Blue Book value. I did the math and realized that even with a car payment plus the price of gas, we'd still be saving money over what Jason is currently having to spend on gas for the van, so I thought it would be a crazy cool birthday surprise for him.

I checked Carfax to see if there were any accidents or recalls in its history that accounted for the price, but the thing was clean. So I called the dealer and asked what the story was, and he said that the owner was moving back to the mainland and had to get rid of it, plus the dealer's lot had absolutely no room for extra inventory so they were pricing it to sell. I made an appointment to meet the dealer (who is over on the other side of the island) at 10 in the morning.

Thus setting up my day from hell.

10:15 a.m.: I get to the dealership, and my sales guy (Greg) is waiting for me. He's your typical cheesy, overenthusiastic car salesman, but whatever. He wasn't as bad as GoLes!, so I guess I should count my blessings. The car is as promised: clean, well-maintained, and inexpensive. We took it for a test drive and it drove perfectly. Deal. So we went inside to do the paperwork.

11:15 a.m.: At some point, someone will have to explain to me why it takes at least 3 hours to buy a car. And I don't mean the "figuring out which car you want and then test driving a bunch of them" part of buying a car. I mean the part where you're just signing forms after you've picked a car, agreed on a price, and been pre-approved for financing. Even after I had signed the papers, called my bank to the get financing set up and added the car to my insurance policy, I sat there waiting for an hour for the financial guy to get me checked out. I was so freaking hungry that I finally told the guys they had 5 minutes to work me in or I was leaving. Miraculously, I was in in 4 minutes.

1:10: We get everything settled, and then comes the question of how I'm going to get the car home. I had told Greg from the beginning that I didn't need the car immediately, but he kept insisting that he could get someone from the dealership to follow us to my house (I would drive my car, he would drive the new car, and someone else would follow) and then give him a ride back. Fine. But once we were ready to go, this "friend" somehow failed to materialize, so he asked if I could give him a ride back. I begrudgingly agreed, so we set off.

2:20: We've dropped my car at my house and are almost back at the dealership when my phone rings. It's Zeke's school, informing me that he had a fever and needs to be picked up. Great. I'm only 15 or 20 minutes from the school, except for the fact that I'm in the new car, which doesn't have a carseat in it. The daycare doesn't have any extras I could borrow, so I have to go all the way back to my house, switch cars, and go get Zeke. I park Jason's new car in our neighborhood's guest parking lot so he wouldn't see it, and made a mental note to remember to put the guest pass in the dashboard before going to bed. I still haven't eaten.

(For all of you drama enthusiasts out there, I just planted the gun in Act I that will go off in Act III.)

3:40: I get to the daycare. I put Zeke in the car and we go straight to the doctor's office. He has a virus -- coughing, fever, stuffy nose, upset stomach. The doctor prescribes cough medicine and recommends Tylenol and infant Benadryll. I buy a packet of almonds at the pharmacy. The almonds, plus a fruit smoothie in the morning, are the only things I've eaten all day. I'm totally exhausted.

5:30: Zeke and I finally get home. Jason is home.

6:00: We bathe Zeke and put him in his jammies. He's exhausted, rubbing his eyes, but having a really hard time settling down. We get him dosed up with his medicine, and I spend the next 2 hours walking the floors with him as he cries. Finally, he goes to sleep.

8:00: I sit down to finish a brief for work.

9:30: I finally collapse in my bed.

At 3:30 in the morning, I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding.

I had forgotten to put the guest pass in the dash of Jason's new car. And without a guest pass after 2 a.m., they call the tow trucks. But I couldn't run out the door and check. Jason was stirring awake (he gets up to go to work at 4), so what the hell was I going to say when he asked where I was going? "Oh, the dog might need a walk in the middle of the night"?

So I wait until Jason leaves at about 4:20 in the morning, and then I sprint down the street to check on the new car.

It's been towed.

Imagine that scene in Ferris Bueller when Cameron realizes the mileage on his dad's Ferrari is way higher than it should be, and he screams and goes catatonic. That's what was happening in my head.

I had another crazy day today, getting hold of my neighbor to give me a ride to the towing place, schlepping Zeke around in the process because he's still sick and feverish. He barely napped and had a number of periods of discomfort in which he was incredibly fussy, so my nerves are shot, I'm still hungry because I was so busy with the baby that I didn't have time to eat much, and I've been up and working since Jason left at 4:20 because I needed to do some final revisions on the brief, but knew I wouldn't have time once Zeke was up. And I'm out $167 to the fucking towing place.

But on the bright side, in addition to losing a bunch of leftover baby weight over the past few days, Jason's car is now sitting in its little spot in the guest lot, patiently waiting for Saturday so that it can meet its new owner. And there's a pretty blue guest pass hanging from the rear view mirror.