Last week we spent a few hours rescuing our daughter when the car left her stranded in Philly at night. Correction. John did the rescuing. I sent texts and paced. He unhooked the battery from one of our cars, took it in another car and drove it down to her. Then he drove home the ailing vehicle, without lights, so the car that could not hold a charge would make it twenty miles. I had material for worrying. Subsequently this has had repercussions in terms of us car sharing while we lent her ours. Each day we negotiate who has wheels and who walks or gets ferried. 

This week a friend was telling me about her concerns around her daughter's car, and the mechanic's attempts to fix the starter. Her husband walked in for a chat and an exchange of keys while they made a plan for their car sharing for the afternoon. It was oddly endearing, to think that they were engaged in the same unromantic negotiations we were.

Then this morning a different friend posted about how she and her husband spent their anniversary solving their daughter's flat tire. I guess it's a thing. 

I wrote about our challenges (euphemism for "I want to quit") with Benjamin recently and got several responses from people with parallel struggles, though none of them mentioned quitting. They are nicer than me. 

It suggests to me that the world is smaller than I think, and that we are all just trying to figure it out. Marriage may be less about choosing an entree at your favorite four star restaurant than it is teaming up to problem solve about the random events that plop into our otherwise carefully orchestrated day. 

And maybe those events are not particularly unique.