Friday, August 25, 2006

My tiny thumbs ruled out hitchhiking home...

My plan for yesterday: Get out of the house early sporting a sassy hairstyle to drive an hour and take care of some work for the radio station. Then leave there and book back an hour to arrive at work at an acceptable hour. Work like a madwoman and go home with a sense of accomplishment.
What actually happened: The plan began to fall apart the night before when the Pretend Husband went to play poker with friends and I discovered that I can’t fall asleep (at least not easily) without him next to me. So I ended up still being awake when he got home around 12:30 a.m. and we then, of course, had to talk for an hour to catch up on our days.
About five hours after we finally went to sleep, the alarm blared us awake. Skipping the sassy hairstyle in favor of not taking the time to shower (thus hopefully leading to me getting to work that much earlier and being that much more productive), I went with an experimental “no bangs” look (as in, “Look at my sixhead. It’s not a forehead, not a fivehead, but a sixhead! It’s huge!”)
Anyway, I hit traffic on my way to the radio station, but still felt like I had the time to stop for gas (good thing, since I wouldn’t have actually made it without the fill-up) and get there. Everything was peachy… until I tried to turn into the parking lot of the radio station and my car died.
When I say died, I mean the engine sputtered, all the dashboard lights came on and the power steering locked up so I had no control over the car other than bringing it to a stop in whatever direction the wheel was stuck in. Still in the street, I tried to get the engine started. After a few attempts, I got the car to start long enough to get it into a parking spot, where it died again.
This is where I’d like to take a moment to point out just how unfair this situation is. I mean, I take my car in for regular tune-ups and oil changes, I try not to drive like a maniac and make her do things she doesn’t want to do and I even sometimes treat her to a wash and wax. I don’t expect much in return– just her to get me where I need to go as fast as I need to get there and not strand me in another state. She was definitely not holding up her end of this bargain!
Luckily, there was a garage right next to the station and although it specialized in tire rotation and oil changes rather than fuel system repair (it’s all cars to me), they were kind enough to tromp over to the parking lot where my car sat forlornly and try to diagnose the problem. I was actually the one to come up with what happened and surmised that the batch of gasoline I had put in the car five miles before was a bad one.
To make this long story (kind of) short, the kids from the repair place put in some sort of solution that sucked the water out of the gasoline, had fun burning out my clutch while driving around the parking lot for 20 minutes to get the stuff through the system and only charged me $1.50 for all their fun.
And, although I was much later for work than I had intended to be, at least I got there in my own car, which is running just fine now. I never quite achieved that sense of accomplishment, but I may have found a new hairstyle, so I’d say it all evened out in the end.

1 comment:

Molly said...

We need them but I hate cars! Mine is not the same since my radiator and gasket blew a few weeks ago and they replaced it. It shouldn't have happened, it's only 3 years old, but it did. Now it shakes and does not feel healthy!

Glad those guys were good to you and got your car running!