I Hate The Car
I hate our car.
Before the real estate fairy came through for us and we decided to buy the house, Mom was getting a new car this year. I think the car must know this, because it's been really bad this summer. It will get overheated and refuse to turn over and start, sometimes stranding us after two or three errands. I've been stuck at the crappy mall I only go to because it has the best movie theater, at Rite-Aid with ice cream melting in the back seat, at the post office, my dentist, the office supply store, and once, rather embarrassingly, across the street from the sales office for our new housing development.
We know it does this, and we've been trying to muddle through- give it enough time between turning off the engine and starting it again, pop the hood and air stuff out to cool it off, or for little stuff like picking up the mail on the way in to the apartment, just not turning off the engine. We've babied it and been nice to it, bribed it with car washes and fuel injector fluid, we even bought it new windshield wipers...
And last week it started making this... noise. Like one of the belts (and we only have one) was going. Too.
We know this noise. It's done it before. It started making said noise back when I was still in high school, fall of my senior year, I think. We went camping with relatives and some friends of the family- this whole huge group that used to go every year, it was insane and fun- down south at New Brighton Beach. We still lived north of Sacramento at the time. The damn thing died on us outside of Fairfield, and I mean died- black smoke pouring out from under the hood and everything, it was pretty scary. Mom and I ended up on the shoulder of a freeway exit ramp way out in the middle of fucking nowhere, in the heat, trying to figure out where the hell we were exactly so we could tell AAA where to send the two truck.
Our day got worse from there. The tow truck took us into Fairfield, and the nearest auto shop he knew of, which was Good Guys. According to the husband of a friend of Mom's who used to drive trucks through that area, it was the really horrible side of town where two women should not have been walking from Good Guys to Motel 6 at sunset. It was the Motel 6 from hell, too, so dirty and creepy I slept in my clothes, wore my shoes into the bathroom, and prayed, a lot, that nothing bad would happen to us.
So, to make a long story short, we know what the noise means. Sooner or later something will blow up, stranding us wherever we are. It would be better this time, because we'd be somewhere in town, not out in the sticks coming home from a camping trip, and AAA will tow the car anywhere within 100 miles of where it dies, which obviously includes anyplace in town. BUT. It's still summer in Fresno, which means too freaking hot, and- we'd just rather avoid the whole experience if possible.
So, Mom drove the car to the shop today, to have them check out both issues. She called me a little bit ago with the latest.
That "I don't think I want to start yet" thing? Our distributor is disintegrating.
That "oh shit not you again" nose? Drive belt.
They have to order parts, it'll be at least two days, maybe more.
I kind of want to blow up the car, except it's already trying to take care of that on its own.
As if I needed more stress right now?
Damn car...
Before the real estate fairy came through for us and we decided to buy the house, Mom was getting a new car this year. I think the car must know this, because it's been really bad this summer. It will get overheated and refuse to turn over and start, sometimes stranding us after two or three errands. I've been stuck at the crappy mall I only go to because it has the best movie theater, at Rite-Aid with ice cream melting in the back seat, at the post office, my dentist, the office supply store, and once, rather embarrassingly, across the street from the sales office for our new housing development.
We know it does this, and we've been trying to muddle through- give it enough time between turning off the engine and starting it again, pop the hood and air stuff out to cool it off, or for little stuff like picking up the mail on the way in to the apartment, just not turning off the engine. We've babied it and been nice to it, bribed it with car washes and fuel injector fluid, we even bought it new windshield wipers...
And last week it started making this... noise. Like one of the belts (and we only have one) was going. Too.
We know this noise. It's done it before. It started making said noise back when I was still in high school, fall of my senior year, I think. We went camping with relatives and some friends of the family- this whole huge group that used to go every year, it was insane and fun- down south at New Brighton Beach. We still lived north of Sacramento at the time. The damn thing died on us outside of Fairfield, and I mean died- black smoke pouring out from under the hood and everything, it was pretty scary. Mom and I ended up on the shoulder of a freeway exit ramp way out in the middle of fucking nowhere, in the heat, trying to figure out where the hell we were exactly so we could tell AAA where to send the two truck.
Our day got worse from there. The tow truck took us into Fairfield, and the nearest auto shop he knew of, which was Good Guys. According to the husband of a friend of Mom's who used to drive trucks through that area, it was the really horrible side of town where two women should not have been walking from Good Guys to Motel 6 at sunset. It was the Motel 6 from hell, too, so dirty and creepy I slept in my clothes, wore my shoes into the bathroom, and prayed, a lot, that nothing bad would happen to us.
So, to make a long story short, we know what the noise means. Sooner or later something will blow up, stranding us wherever we are. It would be better this time, because we'd be somewhere in town, not out in the sticks coming home from a camping trip, and AAA will tow the car anywhere within 100 miles of where it dies, which obviously includes anyplace in town. BUT. It's still summer in Fresno, which means too freaking hot, and- we'd just rather avoid the whole experience if possible.
So, Mom drove the car to the shop today, to have them check out both issues. She called me a little bit ago with the latest.
That "I don't think I want to start yet" thing? Our distributor is disintegrating.
That "oh shit not you again" nose? Drive belt.
They have to order parts, it'll be at least two days, maybe more.
I kind of want to blow up the car, except it's already trying to take care of that on its own.
As if I needed more stress right now?
Damn car...