The day after I backed over a perfectly innocent mailbox, on St. Patrick’s day I didn’t have the luck of the Irish. Thanks to my son’s indomitable spirit, I didn’t explode.

After playing Mr. Mom at a playdate and checking in on Shannon, I took a tip from one of the mothers and told Benjamin we needed to leave to go see Bolt at a local cheap theater’s 75-cent day. He didn’t whine at all when I told him it was time to leave the park.

I noticed that the van’s fuel light was on, but we were in a bit of a hurry and the needle showed we had plenty to get there.

(click any pic to enlarge)

Over the sprawling mass of moviegoers we quickly found that Spring Break is the worst time to go to a discounted dollar theater. The next two showings of Bolt were sold out, and nothing else appropriate was available. Ben didn’t whine at all when I told him we couldn’t go see anything there.

A couple miles down the road, the van died. I coasted enough to turn onto a residential street to a neat stop, as if visiting friends.

Benjamin and I got out and started a trek toward the nearest gas station. “Daddy, my toes are hitting the front of my shoes,” he said, with no hint of whining. When I didn’t see a station at the first intersection we reached, we stepped into Chicago Street Pizza to ask.

A lady sitting at a table picking at a piece of deep-dish pizza got up when we walked in. “Hi, can I help you?” she said.

“Um, actually, don’t bother getting up. We’re not here to get food,” I said. “Could you just tell us where the nearest gas station is?” *

She let on that it was going to be quite a walk. Shannon’s mother lived a few miles down the road adjacent to the pizza joint, so I called her to come rescue us.

Benjamin looked up at me and whispered, “Daddy, can I have some pizza? I’m hungry.”

While he ate, I snapped pictures — but not before deftly using my camera strap to knock my full water cup into my lap. I deliriously laughed it off and hoped Benjamin wasn’t picking up anything bad from Kathy Griffin’s show on the TV hanging in the corner.

My mother-in-law and her husband had got rid of their gas can before moving to a townhouse. Luckily, convenience stores always have an overpriced gas can waiting for idiots like me. It’s still a lot cheaper than towing service.

“Oh, and I’ll need a gallon of gas, too,” I told the nice man behind the counter.

“Sorry, our pumps are being serviced for the next two hours.”

Boy was I glad there was another station across the street. We got gas there and headed back to the van.

Benjamin cheerily collected acorns and twigs while I poured half of the gas into Homer and half of it down his side and onto his tire. It was a very leaky eight-dollar gas can. Ben also held a plastic bag for my used wet wipes after I cleaned my hands.

Shannon’s mom followed us to a gas station that was on the way home for her and us. For some reason, I needed to open the rear driver’s side door. It buzzed at me and refused because I already had released the gas cap door. I shut that and tried again. The door repeated its buzzing.

Did I mention it’s a very annoying sound?

I pulled harder trying to make the automatic door engage. The handle and the housing around it popped off and bounced against the side of the van, then dangled. I laughed hysterically, but had the presence of mind to snap a photo before pounding the useless handle back into place.

When Benjamin and I got home, a neighbor from across the street knocked on the door and we walked to a park a little more than a mile away. Ben had on different shoes this time and for a few blocks he pulled his friend and her little brother in our wagon.

Would it be a stretch to suggest that my son detected the stressful situations throughout the day and knew when whining would be a very bad idea? Whatever the reason, he was a calming force that day and the one before it.

(* – I measured later while driving that same road, and found that Benjamin and I walked only .3 miles. Also, had his grammy not saved us, we would have had about a mile to go on foot.)