Olga the Odyssey Saves Jon's Ass

A few weeks ago Jon and I finally bought a car. Not just any car, but a mini van. Yes, we've totally sold out. We named her Olga even before she was officially part of our family. After 18 months of car shopping and some major saving (and driving for a year with no air conditioning), we bought her outright with our debit card. No car payment for these Frady's. I could go on and on about all her fun, dorky features- like the leather and heated seats and multiple airbags to protect the car seat from side impact- and how hilarious Jon looks driving the 'man van', but I'll hurry it up and get to the point of this post.

Saturday we ended up without a sitter and had to take Lovie with us to the Threadgill wedding in Columbia, TN. Olga came along and helped us arrive safely and comfortably. The ceremony was gorgeous and thankfully Lovie was not the only child that had to be removed during the vows due to screaming "NA NA NA!!! DA DA DA!!!!! APPLE!!!!!!", ripping apart the Catholicism brochure she found in the back of the pew, and pulling 50 wipes out of the diaper bag and nonchalantly tossing them over her shoulder.

She did miss naptime and ate a doughnut for breakfast. That's the only excuse I can think of for her acting this way.

Reception: equally gorgeous. Open bar. AGRs. Even more tired baby. Unconfirmed suspicion: husband drinks quickly at open bar due to embarrassment that he once hit heavily on Threadgill's mom. Second unconfirmed suspicion: Husband takes shots after Threadgill's mom realizes said husband is that certain AGR that took a liking to her in his drunk college boy days and tells him that they go 'way back'. Confirmed suspicion: Baby is asleep in my arms and after two hours of saying that we need to go, soon-to-be-castrated husband continues to chug beer at the bar in defiance of leaving his buddies for the embarrassing man-van ride home.

As soon as I got Jon and Lovie loaded up in our new ride, the hiccups started. They weren't coming from Lovie. I knew we were in for a very long hour ride home. Two miles from the reception hall I pulled into the shell station and parked right next to a dad with a van full of kiddos. Jon fell out and stumbled into the store to get a coke. 3 minutes later he walked back toward our van with his middle finger aimed upward, but really toward me. The neighboring man van driver gave him an empathetic look. Jon got in the passenger side and his head started swaying. He spit out the window and onto our right side neighbor's car. Then opened the door, stood up, and let it roll. No details needed. The kids to the left of us watched  in horror. Their parents hurried them up into their car and drove away.

Ten minutes passed and I got Jon all loaded up. I gave him the bottle cooler to use as a bucket and instructed him that if he threw up in my new car he would lose his balls for good. Not seconds later he rolled down the window and let it fly. Unfortunately it flew back in at approximately 55 mph all over the interior, and all over the sleeping baby in the back seat.

We were just at the on ramp of Saturn Parkway in Spring Hill. I put the flashers on and pulled over to the right. I screamed at him to get out because he was too drunk to use the bucket/cooler. He stumbled to the side of the road and continued calling dinosaurs.

I pulled out my cell phone to take a blackmail picture. Unfortunately it came out too black to see. I dialed Steph to tell her my latest Frady story. She has seen him in action and feels my pain. The line rang once and that's when I saw blue lights in my rear view mirror and thought it best to hang up.

I burst out laughing. This was just too much to handle. Seriously, I couldn't do anything but laugh until the mag light was shining in my eyes, and then in the eyes of my sleeping child.

Two officers were at my window interrogating me about what sort of domestic dispute was occurring.

"Sir, we've been at a wedding and my husband is a drunk ass. There is no domestic dispute, I just didn't want him puking in my new car- see our new car tags? I'm just trying to get my child home to sleep."

Jon didn't even realize the cops had pulled up. He was just stumbling around on the side of the interstate making more dinosaur friends. Then there were two lights in his eyes, and he morphed from drunk dada to a deer in the headlights. They interrogated him about our domestic dispute, and he insisted there wasn't one. He continued getting sick right infront of them.

They came back to me. "Ma'am, do you realize that as soon as he gets out of the car throwing up that is public intoxication? We're going to have to write him a ticket and take him in for the night."

"No, sorry, I didn't want him messing up my interior. Can you just put him back in his man van?"

The two started laughing with me.

"In his condition he could easily wander into traffic and kill himself. Since your child is with you in the van and if you say there is no dispute, we will let him go this time."

"I promise that there is no dispute right now, but if you'd like to follow up home to East Nashville I can guaruntee there will be one there that you can write us a ticket for."

Seriously, ya'll, they were rolling in laughter. They got Jon by the arm and guided him back into the van. They checked his license and gave it back to him (somehow he didn't make it home with it though).

Jon: "I'm so sorry guys, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so drunk So sick.."

The cops continued to laugh and reached in and patted him on the shoulder "It's okay, man. We've all been there. It happens to the best of us. In the future, make sure you puke inside the car. As soon as you get out of the car you are a threat to the public."

"Are you sure you don't want to keep him for the night?"

They looked at me in pitty through their laughter. There I was. Sleeping baby. Drunk husband. Puke covered gray leather interior. We were a sad, sad, sight. Off we went in our Olga. 

Jon left at least a gallon more bio-hazardous waste on 65N, much of which blew back in at 75mph. He refused to use the cooler.

I parked in our driveway at about 11:30pm. Our neighbors were having a wedding reception and cars were parked everywhere down our street. Jon stumbled out and attempted to make his way on our porch. I got Lovie out of van and let myself inside the house, locking the door behind me. I told Jon to stay outside until he was done getting sick. I know from MANY multiple experiences what would happen if I let him inside. I cleaned Lovie up and laid her in her crib before I went in search of Jon.

I looked in the van. No Jon. I looked in the car. No Jon. He wasn't dead in the street, either. I saw something light colored between our house and our neighbor's house. A shirt! Beyond that, a shoe. Another shoe. A pair of socks. A belt. Two bare feet pointed up toward the stars. There he was- spread eagle, shirtless. Half naked. His Power T tie laid next to him. Pants undone,  a pile of receipts from his pockets scattered around him. Hands crossed over his bare chest, he was fast asleep right underneath our 12 year old neighbor's bedroom window.

To leave him to snooze or make him come inside? I debated. Then I left him there.

At 3am he was banging on the door. The rain woke him up. I wiped him off, gave him a phenergan and 2 aleeve and put him in the bed.

The next afternoon he stumbled into the living room half dead. "I think I almost went to jail last night." I gave him some more medicine. He asked where his clothes, wallet, and phone were. I went out in the rain to look for them.

Any passerby looking at our yard could have easily thought the rapture had occurred and that they were left behind. With the pile of clothes, it looked like the person wearing them had just disappeared. The alarm on his blackberry had been going off in the grass for approximately 6 hours.

I was mad, but the whole thing was so funny. Jon cleaned the car and the house to make up for it. It's a good thing our babysitter bailed or else we would have been driving the car and not had Lovie with us- both of which I'm sure made the difference in them deciding to let Jon go and not spend the night in jail. If crazy things like this didn't happen to us, I'd have nothing to fun to blog about!