Going for Broke

Jamaican Max started moonlighting his moonlighting job. Last night he finished the radio at midnight and was up to see the races by 6.30 this morning and then he had some translations to do. Poor Max. Since it was his first time, we had no idea how long it would all take, after he was finished we were going to trek over to the nonni's for easter. By the time he finished, it was noon. It was too late to make it to the cuneo by lunch time (almost a three hour drive) and it wasnt worth it to stop at an autogrill (mom's favorite italian restaurant). So it was a quick jump to the store for some sandwich stuff - shoved food in our faces, cleaned up the kitchen, last minute shoving stuff in bags and we were ready. but then of course i noticed that the latest 'lost' episode was just about finished downloading, so we waited. then i wanted to convert the file to fit on the lg so we would watch tonight. and so we waited a little more. what was supposed to take 10 more minutes for downloading, then another 10 for conversion, ended up taking much longer of course! by the time we were in the car it was 4 pm. sophia was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as we got in the car. max heard a weird noise, but i thought it was just the wind and didnt think anything of it. soon i was asleep. and the n a JOLT and i saw that we were on the side of the road coasting. my first thought was...oh great, max fell asleep too. instead, the car just broke. luckily we made it to one of th e little SOS areas (there isnt really much shoulder room /if any at all) Max only had to help the car along a few feet.To show you what we were near, here is a picture of the only sign of life where we stopped. (It could always be worse, there are slaughter houses along the road that stink to high heaven.) I looked at the clock and it was now 4:43, so we didnt get far. Despite our bad luck we had un colpo di culo (which literally means hit of ass, but figuratively means luck)...
...just seconds after we stopped, a tow truck was passing and he stopped to see if we needed help. This guy was actually really nice, he was on his way to go get somebody else, but he saw us and called his co-worker to come and get us. just before he arrived, sophia woke up and not too happily. we kind of thought she would sleep the whole ride thru, of course that didnt happen. she started asking for milk, crackers and anything else we didnt have in the car. (i had packed some cookies and water). T
sophia was pretty grumpy by the time the other tow guy showed up. when the car started getting towed away she was pretty hysterical, she didnt understand what the guy was doing. Che culo (literally-what ass, figurative-what luck - i just like how opposite ass is used in italian as compared to English, hence the lessons) this tow guy was just as nice as the first. He honked the horn for Sophia and when he realized she liked it, he did it again and again, talking to her and trying to make her smile. he way towing works is like this: its not thru AAA, they only tow your car to a holding lot, they charge per day and will charge to take your car back to your house/mechanic etc. It's Easter wknd so we were stuck for today, tomorrow and monday is a holiday too. but these were actually a bunch of honest guys and they dont charge much. oh its gonna cost a pretty penny (euro?), but things could have gone a lot worse! Both the guys were really nice to all of us.
We were in towed back to their place in Bereguardo (pavia). The lot was next to nothing and they guy might have had to leave at any minute, so instead of making us wait outside the office, he drove us to the town center. there was still not much there- but at least there was a bench and a bakery. the whole town smelled of poop (animal?) so i wasnt much up for eating. but sophia was. oh i forgot to mention, last time we went to cuneo, sophia didnt pee the whole time (and she was awake the whole time). ive been trying to have her go around without the pull-up. today i just put on the plastic lined panties. i asked and i asked, but she said she didnt have to go pee. but then the guy at the tow office gave her a bottle of water and she drank loads. i was getting nervous, and just when i decided to put the diaper on she peed- so there we were, sitting on a bench, all our junk scattered all around, looking like homeless gypsies and changing our daughter who was peeing during the process. it cant ever be simple can it?
the sun started going down, the gnats started swarming and it started to get cold. just in time, our hero arrived Creetz (car on the right). hip hip hooray. now our car is broken and the nonno is heart broken and we are just plain broke.

ps we were 43 minutes from milan/2 hours and 17 minutes from cuneo-it made more sense to go home. the nonni wanted to come and get us -especially because the nonno was worried about the chocolate egg. he was totally upset that sophia wouldnt get her chocolate egg from him tomorrow and it would...what get thrown away? rot? be stolen? just plain disappear? im pretty sure she wont even notice. Happy Easter Eve!