I had not learned of what a Trivette night was until last nights set of events. After the craziness that was last night, my husband informed me that his family is known to have crazy things happen to them like we did last night and that he forgot to tell me about it before we got married. Thanks a lot (just kidding 
. Also, be warned this is long, but hilarious (at least the people I have told about this have thought so).
I will start with yesterday morning. I went outside to start the car so it could warm up before I left for work. I put the key in the ignition, and got nothing. The battery was dead. So instead of getting Tim out in the cold, I just took his truck to work (all of his plans for the day consisted of staying at the apartment). So I drove to work, and had a great day. I told my boss what was going on and he offered a car for us to borrow. We can deal with only having one vehicle, we have before. So I thanked him and told him I didn’t think we would need it.
The day went along. I originally thought that I would be teaching a class at church last night but at the last minute found out that they did not need me. So that was a nice surprise to get to hang out with Tim for the evening.
I came home to all of the furniture stacked up in the kitchen, on top of our couch or on top of our bed. Tim had arranged for our floors to be shampooed during the day. When you live in a one-bedroom apartment with two dogs, you need to get your carpet shampooed. And because our complex offers it for free once a month, we gladly accepted. When the shampooer man (I hope no one who holds that particular position reads this, I am sure that is a ridiculous name for them) finished up, he told Tim to try not walking on the carpet much until it dries. So last night, just about every time I walked on the carpet, he flipped out.
Usually, I am not allowed in the kitchen if he is in there. I know that it sounds ridiculous, but he is extremely claustrophobic, and I don’t understand the meaning of personal space. With those two thrown into the mix of an extremely small kitchen usually do not turn out well. So he just made the rule for me to stay out of the kitchen if he is in there.
Tim cooking in an extremely small kitchen
Last night I would stand on the carpet just outside of the kitchen. When he would point out that I was standing on the carpet, I would say that I was confused b/c I am also not allowed in the kitchen (he was cooking at this point). So he took that rule away for the evening. 
After that both of us cooked (with me making sure I stayed standing in my very small space) tacos for dinner. Then we set two chairs upright and ate together.
eating in the small kitchen
(Ha! Tim hates taking pictures!)
Ok, so we have eaten and now need to go to Wal-Mart. We decide to go ahead and try to jump off my car. So we hook up the jumper cables to my car and his truck. He goes to start his truck, and it is dead. No joke. We are sitting in our parking lot, with BOTH vehicles dead. What the…. We try to figure out what in the world we are going to do. I have to go to work tomorrow, 30 minutes away. And Tim starts school (tomorrow actually meaning today). So I call my boss and tell him I am going to have to take him up on the offer of borrowing his car. And Tim has to call someone who will take us to his house. We get all of that set up. Great.
We still cannot believe what is going on and are still trying to figure out what we are going to do with our vehicles and what in the world could be wrong with them. I very loudly proclaimed that I didn’t do anything to them to make them both die on the SAME DAY. While we were talking about it all, I remembered that when he put his key in the ignition, his truck made that annoying buzzing noise, it just wouldn’t start. So I made the ridiculous suggestion that maybe his truck would have just enough power to jump off my car. What could we lose (besides this crazy suggestion causing his battery to drain and possibly kill the alternator too)?! So we went for it. AND IT WORKED!!! There was just enough energy to jump off my car, and then my car jumped off his truck. HA! We still have no clue how that happened. Our vehicles revived each other! **Side Note: When telling my dear friend Katie about this, she said, “Jess, that is beautiful! That is a great depiction of your marriage! You should write that in your journal!” I love that girl.**
So our cars are both working, but we are concerned they might not start in the morning. Off to Advanced Auto Parts we go. Getting into my car, I somehow slam my head into the door frame of the car. Ouch. Then we get there and I go in to get someone while Tim stays with the cars. For some reason, I decided to tell the guy they whole story. I don’t really know why, that is just me. Later Tim asked why I did that, I had no answer for him.
He comes out to do the diagnostic test, and discover it is the same thing for both of our vehicles. The clamp that attaches the cables from the engine to the studs from the battery is broken on both vehicles. It costs a total of $9 to fix. HALLELUJAH!! Praise the Lord it was nothing too expensive.
Tim fixes his truck at the store and decides b/c we still need to go to Wal-Mart, he will just fix mine at home. We head over to Wal-Mart, then head home. He starts to working on mine and discovers that mine is going to be a lot harder than his. And with no light, it’s freezing outside, and it’s really late, we decide maybe we need to call my boss back and ask to borrow the car again (thanks Dave!). At least now we have one working vehicle.
We head over and pick up the borrowed vehicle, and then come back home. Thank goodness the carpet is dry at this point! I start to put all of the furniture back. We are sitting around the living room and Tim tells me about a phone call he had with his brother earlier that night. He called Rob and told him that he has had a “Trivette night”. Rob said, “oh s#!t, what happened?”. Apparently just by saying that he had had a Trivette night, Rob knew something crazy had happened. Apparently it comes with the family to have things like this happened. They all have their own set of stories. Great. Tim said, “I forgot to mention that before we got married”. Thanks for that.
We are getting ready for bed when we see the final ridiculous occurrence of the night happen. The very night of getting our carpet shampooed, our lovely dog, the one that Tim claims is his dog, decides to drag his butt across our carpet. We just casually tell him to stop b/c we have seen him do it before. Only this time, a brown streak goes across the carpet! Holy cow! I cannot believe this! Tim is flipping out again while I am trying to get the streak up. He is very calmly telling Blu (our dog) that he would gladly get rid of him at this point (which is a big deal, he always says that our more rambunctious dog Kansas, my dog, would be the one we would get rid of). I can’t help but laugh on the inside. I have the wisdom at this point to not laugh out loud.
After all of that, I randomly get hyper and annoy the crap out of Tim. Then we go to bed. Neither of us can really sleep, but at least all of that is over.
