The bomb shelter refers to our home. We were down to one car--a two seater in a four-seater family. Fortunately the next two days were Thanksgiving vacation, school was closed, work was light and driving was not a necessity, at least until Monday. Even though I planned to cook endlessly, we still needed to stock up, hence the bomb shelter food list to sustain those who were stranded while someone was out with the car.

My 17-year-old daughter was even more marooned--unless a friend picked her up or a parent drove her somewhere--because although she knows how to drive an automatic, the two-seater is a stick.

The little SUV, which isn't even old (a 2000 Oldsmobile Bravada), had blown its transmission. According to our friendly mechanic, it would cost $3,000. Unbelievably, this is just one in a series of car problems we have experienced during the last three months.

It began in September, when I was rear-ended in the SUV on Interstate 280. The sun was starting to set, and the glare forced drivers to slow down rather quickly. I was in one of the right lanes that exits Saratoga Avenue when traffic suddenly stopped. I managed to hit the brakes in time, but when I looked in my rearview mirror I knew the guy behind me was going too fast. No way was he going to stop without hitting me. The damage was minimal, and he did pull off the road so we could exchange insurance information. Even better, no one was hurt, including my daughter, who was in the car with me. A few weeks later, after the guy refused to return our phone calls, his insurance company agreed to paid for the damage.

Two weeks after my accident, my husband was rearended in his 280 Datsun Z. The only thing that saved him from being seriously injured by the Lexus that accelerated right into his sports car was the big, fat bumper hitch on the back of the Z. It took the brunt of the force. But in the end the car was totaled by the insurance company. Apparently paint jobs and body work cost more than older cars these days. My husband received a check from the insurance company and used part of it to push out the rear of the car so the hatch would close. Then he bought the car back from the insurance company. This also required auto inspections, a DMV appointment and a fair amount of paperwork.

During this time we rented numerous cars, even borrowed a car from a very generous friend. After both incidents were behind us, I still had a nagging feeling. That old saying about how things come in threes keep surfacing.

Then my daughter called last Tuesday at 8 p.m., saying she was on a side street because something was wrong with the SUV. Fortunately she was not far away or in danger. When we reached her, the car refused to go into reverse and struggled to shift gears.

So there it was, the third thing, that I hoped was the end of it. And what did I learn out of this ordeal? The most important thing of all: It could have been even worse.

Although my bank account has a hole the size of the Grand Canyon, everyone of us is safe and unhurt. No one ended up in the hospital; all the car problems are repairable.

When we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, it was to enjoy a family feast with plenty of food from the bomb shelter refrigerator that was purchased after driving the little yellow Z that had been totalled and reclaimed. And, oh yes, the Bravada is out on the street, until we hear back from the mechanic, and we have another rental car in the garage.

Moryt Milo is the editor of The Willow Glen Resident. She can be contacted at 400.200.1051 or mmilo@community-newspapers.com.