Big Friday night happenings at (in front of) the yarn shop

Ok, so it was about 4:40pm Friday and Yvette had just come in for her usual Friday afternoon visit/fluff the shelves session. She and I were both looking forward to 6pm when we could pick up our dinners from the Altamont Free Library BBQ Chicken Dinner fundraiser. The doors and windows were open and there was a nice breeze. Then, we heard this sort of crash and scraping sound. We ran to the door and see a stretch limo in the middle of the street (straddling the yellow line) in front of the shop. The front end looked REALLY low. Turns out, it turned the corner from Maple onto Main and broke a ball joint -- and if you know anything about cars (which I sort of do since it's my husbands hobby and I get things through osmosis)... that's not good. It's really bad. You can't even move the car. So, the limo driver lets out the EIGHT people in the car and Yvette invites them all to come sit on the porch while they figure out what to do.

The car is the only limo in this driver's "fleet", so there is no replacement coming. A nice man who lives nearby, offered to drive some of them to their destination. They were going to the Altamont Manor for a wedding that started at 5pm. They had apparently also called the Manor to see if someone could come get them, and the Manor suggested they walk. The Manor is about 1 mile straight up a VERY steep hill from here. Luckily the bride wasn't there yet (we found out later) becuase HER limo was now stuck in the traffic caused by this limo's breakdown! Her limo ended up going by at 5:10pm.

To complicate things, the aforementioned chicken BBQ's first pick-up time was 5pm so there was even more traffic in town than usual. And, boy were people testy. It drives me nuts when it is very clear there is some sort of traffic jam because NO ONE is moving, yet someone still feels it necessary to beep their horn, thinking it will moves things along.

Then there were the many RV's passing through town to go up the hill to the lake campgrounds up there. The limo was smack dab in the middle of the street, with very little room on either side. A car could fit by, going very slowly. But the RV's.... they STILL insisted on trying to get by, rather than taking Maple Street as a detour. One RV was stuck backing up and moving forward for about 5 minutes, trying to get by, until it finally ended up hopping the curb. We thought it's tires were going to pop. Luckily the store was not too busy at this time, or I would have missed all the excitement!

Anyway, it made for a fun 45 minutes. Ah, small town life.
(and the chicken BBQ was really yummy.)