I'm supposed to be cleaning the spare bedroom that we're thinking about relocating the office to, but I'm procrastinating so I can share the "Big Boom" story or as I like to call it, "How I Broke My Baby".

Let me preface this story with the fact that my mother-in-law swears that "it's not vacation until you have car trouble." Um...okay, wish you would have mentioned that BEFORE I broke my baby, but it's good to know regardless.

So, we arrived at the beach and were having a great time. Surf, sun, sea, sunburn - we had all the S's covered. Thursday night, I decided I wanted to run back to a store to get a pair of shoes that I liked, but hadn't gotten a few days earlier. It was pouring rain and there wasn't much else to do besides watch tv or go shopping. Plus, you have to understand how RARE it is for me to find shoes I like anywhere but Payless. Those shoes were ON SALE and destined to be MINE. Plus, there was a cute little beach shop that I wanted to stop at to get a beach shirt for myself.

There is one road onto the inlet where we stayed. Well, there are more, but the one we use is the closest and fastest. LMK and I headed off the inlet with me driving. The Prius is our car, but let's face it. She's mine. I usually drive her; LMK is lucky to ride along. He accepts that.

As we approach the stop light, I hit what I thought was a puddle. However, instead of a neat little splash, we are jarred practically out of our teeth by a pot hole. Shit, shit, shit! I've hit a couple pot holes since we got the car and I'm always sure I damaged the car. Luckily, nothing happened. Until this pot hole.

We pulled into the gas station and LMK got out to check the tires. No problem. He gets back in and we continue to the beach shop. A ways down the road, I look down and notice the tire inflation warning light is illuminated on the dash. Commence instant panic. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY CAR! SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY BABY! LMK is trying to calm me down, but I do NOT handle car problems well. I chalk it up to my control freakiness. I'm not in control, hence panic. This is also the man that told me, "Just because the check engine light comes on, doesn't mean something's wrong!" Uh, yeah, it does. Finally, he agrees to call the Toyota dealer in the morning to see about getting it checked before we leave. I can live with that. I'm a little neurotic about my car, I admit it.

We get to the beach shop and I get out to inspect the tires myself. HOLY SHIT, THE FRONT TIRE IS LOW! Re-commence panic. LMK gives up trying to reason with me and agrees to just go back to the condo where he and his dad can put on the spare until we get it looked at. I turn out of the shop and proceed to take back streets to avoid cutting across 4 lanes of traffic with a low tire. Unfortunately, we end up in a development at a cul-de-sac. More panicking. LMK opens the door to check the tire and we hear this whooshing noise. I'm out of the car and over to his side. Not only is the front tire FLAT the back tire has a hole so large it's WOOSHING air out. Luckily, we're parked on the hole so it's not completely flat.

This would be the point where I lost it. I have no idea where we are, it's getting dark and even if we get a tow truck, HOW WILL THEY FIND US!?

Thankfully, LMK ordered me into the passenger seat and he slowly maneuvered the car back to the beach shop right off the main highway. After we parked I got out and saw that we had not one, but TWO completely flat tires. Thank goodness, my parents insist that I have AAA. We called LMK's Dad to rescue us and then we called AAA to get us towed to the dealership.

From that moment on, everyone was great. The owner of the beach shop told us we could sit there as long as we needed. The tow truck driver got their in under an hour and my in-laws came and rescued us.

My secret worry was that I'd ticked off my car. When we bought her the salesman made a comment about how the car would get to know my driving style and adjust to be more efficient based on that. I was afraid my baby was sitting at the garage plotting how to get even with me for hurting it.

The Toyota dealership was phenomenal. They got our car in (without an appointment) and fixed in under 2 hours. Not to mention it was reasonably cheap considering we needed not one but TWO brand new tires. This experience is enough to make me buy another Toyota in the future. The next day, we picked up the car (which I hugged and apologized to profusely).

On the way home, I took at look at that pot hole. Holy crap! Not only is it about 2ft long and 1 ft wide, it's got a large piece of metal sticking out of it. No wonder my poor car was injured. In the scheme of things, we're lucky it wasn't damaged worse. We were very lucky.