Went to our play group today at the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center. It is about a 45 minute drive from my house but worth it. We had our play group. I am a bit of a regular now so we know people and have bits of conversations. Not like having friends but a step in the right direction. We sing, we dance, we play, we hear a story, we do a craft. Then we played indoors for awhile and then outdoors. As we were playing outdoors, it was a beautiful 65 degree sunny day. There are tree houses, trains, just the most beautiful play area you can imagine, and you can see the Gulf of Mexico just beyond the centuries old oak trees. I was thinking to myself, Lily has the most amazing childhood. She is a lucky little girl.
Our plan was to stop and grab some lunch at McDonald's, return some books to the library, pick up a few things at the commissary and then head home. This McDonald's had an outside playground and Lily asked to play for just a minute. Just a minute I say, as we have a lot to do today. I don't remember the last time it rained, but she somehow managed to get soaked on the slide. Her pants were wet threw to the underwear, her shoes and socks too. All in just a minute. So I revised our plan and decided we would just go home and run the rest of our errands tomorrow.
I decided to take the freeway home. We normally drive along the beach. It is much shorter along the beach, but a lot of traffic, a lot of construction etc, makes it slow going. However, it takes me about the same amount of time either way. Sometimes it just feels like I am getting home faster if I drive 70 on the freeway as opposed to 35 stopping and going along the beach highway. My watch tells me it takes the same amount of time. Some days I just love to drive along the beach. I love to see every week how more and more homes and businesses are being fixed (damaged in Katrina). I love to see the Gulf, the oak trees, the palm trees...
I got off the freeway and was driving down a pretty busy street. My car just stopped working. When I pushed down the gas peddle it would chug, chug, chug, chug and not accelerate. I put on my hazards and coasted down the road. I knew that just two blocks away was an auto mechanic who had fixed my muffler. As I stopped at a light the car died. I got the car to restart, I had to make a turn onto another major road. One of those left turns where two lanes get to turn.
I made it threw the turn. I could see the shop where I wanted to take the car. I had to go past the shop and make a u-turn and go back a bit. I stopped in the turn lane to make the u-turn. The car started smoking and rattling and smoke started billowing out of the vents into the car and out of the hood. I was so scared I was shaking. I just wanted to get me and Lily out of this traffic. The car died again. I got her started again. I made the u-turn and pulled into the parking lot. Safe at last.
Turns out this place only fixes mufflers. Not cars billowing smoke, chugging, and dying. They listened to my woes and they offered to check out the car and see if they could figure out what was wrong. We had to wait an hour to let the car cool down before they could take a look under the hood. They let us watch cartoons and relax. Then they opened the hood and discovered that the lid to the radiator had not been screwed on properly. All the water had splashed out and the car had overheated. Because I had kept going when the engine was seizing up etc. Because I didn't notice the little gauge was up to hot. I might have permanently broken the engine. Or it might be fine. They filled her up with water. The car started and ran ok. I drove directly home. Seemed ok going home. I am transferring the car seat to Jeff's car and never driving that car again. Just so you know. They didn't even charge me any money. They were really busy at the garage too.
The other garage, the one that made me wait six hours to fix my brakes. First they left the oil cap off last time they changed our oil. Oil went everywhere and when we took it back they did a crappy job of cleaning it up. Now the radiator cap. Jeff insisted that they are nice people and we should give them another chance after the oil cap. Now this is chance number two. No more chances, never going back, even though our tires and brakes are under warranty with these fools we are not allowing them to ever again look at our car. Or at least not my new little red car (formerly known as Jeff's car) What he does with the black car is his business.
Man that was so scary. All my "live for today" friends please feel free to tell me that if I bought a new car and made monthly car payments like all other red blooded Americans I would not have all these car problems. Please feel free. In fact can I send you Jeff's email address to tell his this information too. I am thinking of asking Jeff to buy me a brand new mini-van. I think I need one with the TV's in the backseat and what about that thing you see on TV "Play Artist Tiffany". As I type this I notice Lily, who fell asleep in the car on the way home from the most lovely muffler mechanics on the planet, is still wearing her wet pants.
The beautiful sunshiny day can kiss my ass. Oh sorry gotta go outside and play with the kids.
I Think I May Have A Screw Loose
-
I saw my podiatrist yesterday. One part of my foot is still hurting (it's
been almost two months since the surgery). He thinks it may be one of the
screws ...
16 comments:
OMG! What a day!! I'm so glad you made it to the "nice" place in one piece. Although I'm tempted to say go buy a new car, it sounds to me like the car is fine -- it's the people working on the car that need replacing! I'm glad you're not going back to them. What idiots.
OMG! No advice...just OMG!
you are entirely too funny. i'm sorry your happy morning turned to total crap! how scary to have that happen with lily in the car.
i was once going over a draw bridge when my car started to die. i was still headed up when it started chugging and i just begged and pleaded for it to make it over the top of this very rickety old bridge. it did. it rolled to the traffic light at the bottom of the hill. then i pushed it through the intersection and parked it on the street. it never moved again. fortunately it's final resting place was in front of a bar, so i went in and had a drink! (no kids back then).
good luck getting a new mechanic. new cars break down, too.
My heart was pounding as I read about your day. Cars intimidate me.
Man, I HATE it when the car breaks down on a busy road and I have the kids with me. That is the worst! It broke down once on a busy four-lane highway on a stretch of road with no businesses. I had to put the baby in a car seat and desperately hold the hands of the other two to cross the road. It was so awful.
I imagine both you and Lily were frightened. The thing about situations such as this is I remember always having to calm down my kids, as well as myself.
Sure glad you're not going back to the first repair guys!
I am so glad you made it out of the traffic safely and found out what was wrong. I think having a small child with you and having car trouble is a really upsetting situation. Surprisingly, I never had car trouble with either of my sons. These days I drive the old car (1994 Toyota Tercel) and worry that she just might quit on me some day.
P.S. I clicked the link to your money story but got an error message.
Lorelei, trying to convince Jeff that we NEED a brand new minivan. Thanks for the good wishes.
Nap Warden, well said.
mamadaisy, great story - I really needed a drink at that point. You are right about new cars, especially if the radiator cap had been left off a new car the same exact thing would have happened. I have to rememeber to check the guages.
Lynn, cars intimidate me too.
Miss Sniz, that is such a scary story, I am lucky that my heap made it to the parking lot of a friendly garage. The whole time I was terrified I was going to have to get Lily out of the car in the middle of all that traffic.
Marion, I am not sure Lily knew that there was anything wrong. I was careful not to mention it while we were chuging along to the garage. I suppose if she had been a bit older (Lily is 4), I know that if Mandy (16) were in the car she would have been upset.
Shelia, mine is a 1997 Nissan Sentra - she has less than 60,000 miles because she was in storage for four years - but being in storage for 4 years has caused a lot of things like belts, hoses, tires, battery, brakes, to have to be replaced. Thanks for the head up about the link, it is now fixed.
The first time a garage (or any business) is incompetent, I'm gone as a customer. I'm glad your day turned better.
I would say you need to live for the future and get yourself a new car so that you can see the future, rather than take the risk in that #^@& car that use to be Jeff's. Get an Odyssey by Honda. They ar the best!
What a nightmare of a day! And I would've been scared out of my mind, too, just so you know! Glad you found some good people who helped you out, and even gladder still that you made it home safe and sound!
LOL! Loved this story. I mean, it wasn't funny, but it was oh so funny. Ya know? No? K, never mind.
I've had similear "car fun" though, so I'm in the fix-it sisterhood.
Blessings,
~Toni~
http://inthemidstofthisseason.blogspot.com/2007/05/carrying-around-spare-tire-so-to-speak.html
oh, but it started out so lovely. i could almost feel the breeze from the Gulf through the trees.
And, then, crap. Sheesh. Why's there always gotta be a wrinkle in an otherwise fab day.
I am glad you were safely able to get off the road. I am not one who will tell you that if you buy a new car it won't give you headaches, having had to replace a fuel pump on a relatively new car recently. What a friend of ours always did was buy a decent used car for cash, and then deposit an average car payment in his bank account to cover any repair costs that arose. Arrgggh. Car trouble is the worst. It makes me feel so inadequate.
Hi, I found your blog through Sniz's...and I read about your car problems. I live in FL along the Gulf of MExico and LOVE the beach as well! I too just blogged about my old clunker of a car dying on me about 2 weeks ago. I was so mad! I am sorry to hear about your experience. Having just gone through that myself recently I could so relate to your story! It stinks for sure!!
Post a Comment