It was close to midnight, I'd been up since 5:30am seeing the Don and Joey off on their trip to Leicester for the IRCs, driven 3.5 hours down to Glasgow, settled Toots in to uni and dealt with all the emotions that go along with that, driven 3.5 hours back home again in the dark, realised just north of Dundee that we needed more fuel and that nowhere would be open since it was after 10:30pm, tried Westhill, tried Elrick, debated just going home and filling up in the morning, but realised I had a busy day and committments the next day which was the whole point of doing the Glasgow trip in a day and not spending the night in Stirling, and was down to 5 miles of fuel and really I should just suck it up and stop off tonight to fill up. Which I did. With the wrong fuel. Which was a total result of tiredness and not thinking.
So just after midnight I told Tiger to walk home alone and spent a lot of the next 2 hours crying in frustration and anger and tiredness in time with the ringing phone "Ring ring, ring ring... our lines are very busy at the moment, someone will answer your call shortly... ring ring, ring ring... our lines are very busy..." (although I'd gotten through to the AA initially I literally spent 2 hours hearing the "fuel line" ring waiting for someone to pick up to advise me on what to do next). I realised then that I can't handle not having a plan: I didn't care if I had to leave the car and go home and deal with it in the morning, or sit there for 3 hours waiting for someone to come, but I just wanted to know, and 2 hours of the phone endlessly ringing, cutting out, then endlessly ringing again, with no one to talk to and no answer forthcoming, was incredibly frutrating.
In the end I got through to someone via their 'hearing impaired' text number and the car was towed "home" (to the bottom of the lane) close to 4am. By 7am I was awake again thanks to IRC group texts, and by 8am AA told me the car would be pick up in the next couple of hours, towed to Aberdeen to get flushed, and I'd have it back in 3-4 hours. Needless to say Tiger didn't make it to BA Stores to work, and Tom did not get picked up from Stonehaven.
By 5pm I still hadn't heard back from AA or the garage and when I finally got through was told my car was ready to be picked up. From Tullos. At 5pm on a wet and miserable Saturday night. Which meant Sunday was a write off too by the time I'd taken the train and bus out to Tullos, then picked up Tom from Stonehaven (where he'd been looked after so we didn't have to take him to Glasgow), then run another related errand to Balmedie, then finally got home. I wasn't even home before Lightning got back from Group Scout Camp, which was also the whole point of doing Glasgow in a day - the poor boy didn't even have any of us seeing him off to camp - he had to go to iChum's house after school on Friday with all his weekend gear since neither the Don nor I were at home.
What a crappy weekend it ended up - totally self inflicted I appreciate, but crappy none the less. The only upside was I was so miserable that I decided to light the stove for the first time this season, so at least I was warm and miserable, not just miserable!
And no, I don't think it's a lesson learned. Because I know the big car takes diesel and now the little car takes unleaded. It was one of those moments when you're just not thinking because your brain has reached capacity. And maybe for a short while I'll double check each time - maybe even for a long while! - but honestly I can imagine doing it again at some point in the future because it wasn't a rational, or even irrational decision - it's like when you nick yourself with a razor or accidentally cut yourself with a knife: you almost know the split second before it happens that it might or could happen, but it's too late to stop it. But yes, I will be making sure to check twice while I remember!
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