"Henry" Saves Us From Disaster

John and I have always named our cars; even before we met each other, we each had this habit. Not that every single car got named (John's owned more cars but named fewer), but the important ones seem to get dubbed with something. There's been Betty-Lou (a.k.a. Toyo-Glide), Dawson, Arrow, Beep, The Boss, and Dart, to name just a few of the vehicles that have been in our lives.

Late this past week, we did a trade-in and struck a deal for a new Ford. They had to locate the model and colour we wanted as they did not have it on the lot, so we knew it could be a few days before the new vehicle arrived for pick up.

We kept with our plans to leave town for the long weekend, tidied up the condo, closed drapes, and made sure lights etc. were off before locking up. Our last stop before leaving town for several days was at the dealership to sign the paperwork - then it would be off to the cottage.

We signed the paperwork and got the news that our new vehicle could be delivered as soon as the next day (today)! Being immediate-gratification-types, we decided to stick around town for one more day to get the new vehicle as soon as possible. So, we delayed the trip to the cottage for one night and headed home to put the groceries and some frozen food back in the fridge to be re-packed up today.

We got back to our condo and opened the front door to a loud noise and burning smell...John investigated and discovered the paper shredding machine in my office had turned on all by itself and was running full bore! We'd been gone about 2 hours at this point and, judging from the heat and smell of an overheated motor, this thing had been running for a while!

We just shuddered to think what could have happened if we hadn't unexpectedly decided to come home; I had not been due back for 4 days. We could easily have had a fire...and this would have been right on the heels of our condo flood disaster and the past 4 months of repairs.

We feel our new vehicle purchase spared us from another terrible disaster (not sure of the message though...spend thousands to save even more thousands?!?). John named the new truck "Henry" (as in Henry Ford) so we have Henry to thank for sending us home to avert a possible fire.

The evil paper shredder is now in "lock" mode and will not be able to run without a human to turn it on.

Todo bien. (It's all good.)