"Your car is terrifying!"

That is a refrain you really don't want to hear.  Especially when it comes from your teen-age daughter, calling from her cell phone.  Let me back up...CAL had called a few minutes after leaving the house in the Official Kids Car of the Den, the Taurus, saying her battery light was on.  Or at least what she thought was the battery light, and I quote, "Dad, it's the battery light the thing with the little plus and minus right?" Sigh.  So I told her to just keep going.  I never have claimed to know the first thing about cars and their various sundry problems.  Less than two minutes later, she calls shrieking that her car is shaking.  "Turn around," I said.  One minute later, she calls, "No I'm stuck.  Oh wait.  Now the car started again."  A couple of minutes later, she was home, needing my car so she could get to dinner with her friends.

This is the first time I've let her drive my car.  It's not like I have the nicest car in the world.  I don't.  It's a nice car, and big, compared to what CAL is used to driving.  I counseled her to be especially careful when parking it since it's a whole lot more front end than what she's driven previously.  That, and I've seen CAL use her car as a basic battering ram when she parks.  None of that foolishness in my car.  None.  So off she goes, and ten minutes later, she's on the phone yelling, "Your car is terrifying!"  Once she stopped repeating that, she explained that it was terrifying because it was hard for her to park.  Because she wasn't used to driving a big car.  Umm...Princess, did I not warn you?

Oh, and can I just repeat, my car is not terrifying.  I don't think I'll be suggesting to Toyota that they use that descriptor in their advertising.  They've had enough challenges.

From the journal 25 years ago today: I felt so good when this P-Day ended at 5PM today.  I felt I had really represented the Church well.  I swear we should get a degree in Public Relations for all this!  Spent the day at Miami Int'l again.  With someone leaving legally.  For once.  J. left for Colombia.  It was just a little sad.  While at the airport, a 2nd Officer from British Airways read my tag in perfect Spanish.  We talked for about 30 minutes.  He could not believe I was doing this because I wanted to, that I wasn't being paid, and that I would help people because I wanted to.  He was shocked.  He had lots of very frank questions.  I didn't hesitate on one.  My mind always trips me up though because I think in Spanish.  Anyway, it all kind of flew by.