Flippy - I Rant, You Read
Friday, May 29, 2009
My Unlucky Lucky Day aka The ClunkClunkClunk-er
Today was an unlucky lucky day. On the way home from the doctor’s office, on the freeway, I suddenly heard loud clunking from under the hood on the passenger side of the car. It sounded like rocks. Ugh. I immediately got off the freeway at the next off-ramp, and of course got stuck at a long light (clunkclunkclunk), then pulled into the Trader Joe’s parking lot, figuring that at least it was a familiar place. It’s already been a very, very long week, as some of you may already know. I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep because I’ve been keeping normal people’s daytime hours, yet I’ve still mostly been going to bed at our usual 4-6am time because I just feel better when it’s nighttime. Maybe moreso because it’s been so darned hot here. So, anyway, I’m tired and I’ve had lots of important appointments to keep. I didn’t really need car problems on top of everything else, although, really, who does?
I confess to being the stereotypical woman who doesn’t know much about car engines. I hate dirty hands, so engines just aren’t my thing. I mean, I know the basics, and what color drips to worry about and stuff like that. I do not, however, know how to diagnose any engine problems. None of the all-important dash messages came on, the car wasn’t running overly hot, but I do know that my transmission isn’t in the greatest shape. I have to let the engine warm up a bit before I can back out of the garage, or the car just doesn’t move, even if I pump the gas pedal. I was really worried that the transmission was done. I opened up the hood (naturally, it was a really hot day and kind of humid & I wasn’t dressed for sunning myself) and took a peek, just in case it was something obvious, like a bag of rocks imbued with the spirit of Mexican Jumping Beans. There was a big scratch across the top of the battery and what looked like black dust on top of the battery. So I thought, “Weird and bad battery problems?”, but I couldn’t figure out why it would make that clunkclunkclunk noise. I learned nothing after my first peek. Then, I started the engine with the hood open and went to take a look. It couldn’t have been much more obvious if a message scrolled across my hood telling me what the problem was - my belt broke. The noise was it being flung around and around, whipping the battery. Yikes! I knew then that I was in trouble and wasn’t going to be able to just hop back into the car and drive off.
I then did what anyone 44 year old woman with car problems does - I called my daddy. Unfortunately, after I was at my parents’ house and left for the doctor’s office, they left to go out to eat. Strike one! I called Leigh-Ann, not that there was anything that she could do from home, but I wanted to both gripe and let her know that I didn’t know when I was going to make it home. However, we have all of our ringers turned off and the answering machine volume turned off as well. She’d have to be looking at the phone to see it light up in order to know that I called. When I got home, I found out that she’d checked the machine, but right before I’d called. Strike two! Then, a nice young man in a beat up truck stopped in front of my car and asked if I needed help. He said that he had car repair tools with him, but when I told him it was the belt, he couldn’t help because he didn’t have a stash of serpentine belts in his truck. He apologized. I thanked him for stopping, and off he went. Strike three!
Fortunately, I was playing a game that allowed for four strikes. I looked around forlornly, wondering what the heck I was gonna do. But, aha!, a Checker Auto Parts store was across the street. Phew! But, I had no idea how much it was going to cost, and things have been tight around here, to say the least. But, the belt was only $35. Sure, it’s probably a buck’s worth of rubber, but at least it wasn’t a transmission…this time. Once again, though, I’m stereotypically helpless after I buy a part that involves more than adding wiper fluid or checking the oil. I asked the guys at Checker if they knew who could put the belt on. They told me to go across the street, to Purrfect Auto, and to ask for Nick. In all the times we’ve gone to Trader Joe’s over the years we’ve lived here, I have never seen Purrfect Auto, even though I have to drive by it each time we leave TJ’s. To be fair to myself, there are really tall trees in front of it, and it’s attached to the back of a Kmart, so I just assumed the whole building was Kmart’s. I asked for Nick, Nick told me to talk to Rico, the manager. The manager called over the first guy I’d talk to, to find Nick. He told him where my car was (a few hundred feet away, easily seen from the auto repair shop), and the manager told me what to pay the guy (too much for the amount of work, but well worth it to be able to get home), the guy drove me to my car, got out, burned his hands on the, uh, thingie where the belt goes, but managed to get it on right. Told me to start up the car, watched it for a minute to make sure it was on right…and I was done. From the time my car fell apart on the freeway to the time I was back on my way, was about 25 minutes. I thanked the guy profusely, then drove back to the auto parts place and thanked those guys profusely, then drove home feeling somewhat grateful. I realized that I was a little more stressed than I thought because as I got closer to home, my neck muscles started to really hurt. This could’ve happened so many other places; in fact, just about any other place that I can think of on my way home would’ve been a worse place. Phew!
Stay tuned for what my doctor thinks about me being accused of being a “drug addict”. You probably won’t enjoy it as much as I did, but let’s just say that I had no qualms telling him about the accusations because I wasn’t the slightest bit worried about what he would think. He’s seen me once a month, without fail, for 2.5 years - who else, besides Leigh-Ann and the pharmacy, has seen me 30 times in the past two and half years? No one. The pharmacy that I’ve been using since they opened (before my back surgery, so it was at least four years ago) also had a little something to say about the accusations.
Next entry: Drug Addiction Accusations - My Doctor's (and his staff's) Response and my pharmacist's response Previous entry: Sometimes college degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on, d'oh!
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Purrfect Auto? Awesome. Glad you were able to get back on track fairly easily. Surprised you had money to pay for it all, what with the rampant drug addiction…;)
Marina on 05/29 at 04:09 PM -
It’s kind of amusing that Purrfect Auto saved my butt yesterday, after Leigh-Ann & I had such an awful experience with them a couple of years ago (different locations though) - http://www.flippyodegard.com/index.php/weblog/comments/dear_purrfect_auto_you_suck/. They owed me one.
Oh, don’t you know, my daddy pays for my drug addiction or so the “concerned” rumor mill says. Another interesting coincidence, when I went to look for my old Purrfect sucks blog entry and started to read it, in it I was talking about the biscotti that my parents get at Costco. We haven’t had any in maybe a year. Yesterday, my mom gave me a jumbo container of it that they got at Costco. It just all comes full circle, huh? Except the drugs, they just go down the hatch…not full circle.
Oh, and I apparently only have five readers/friends. Admittedly, because I haven’t been a consistent blogger since I started feeling crappy, my traffic has gone down, but five commenters means many, many more readers. I’ve seen so many blogs where people comment for the first time after reading for years. Personally, I don’t get that, but perhaps it’s because I’m so opinionated that I have to comment. Also, because sometimes I need to know more about someone’s story, like which twin was born first or where the picture was taken or things like that, and because it’s online, I’m not shy about asking. In real life, I’d be the quiet non-commenter.
Off to go get some biscotti and some druuuuuuuugs.
Flippy on 05/29 at 05:25 PM -
All I can say is—- boy, did you get lucky. I’ve never had my car break down in such a perfectly located spot.
The tranny doesn’t sound good, though. I’d sell it while you can still get something for it.
Neecy on 05/29 at 10:21 PM -
OMG, I’m so sorry you had to go through that on top of everything else - but how fortunate that you had a breakdown right at an auto parts store and an auto repair place.
I’m curious, though: why did you pay money for the belt and labor? Surely you could have just traded them some drugs - after all, didn’t you just come from the doctor???
Helly on 05/29 at 10:44 PM -
Neecy - sell it…and then what? The car only cost $3000, which included all taxes, license and fees. I got a good deal on it, and actually like the car, except for all the little dings & scratches, non-working window and iffy transmission. We’ve always wanted another Aztek since had the first one, but it’s hard to find them here - Las Vegas is one of the few places where they’re actually popular. They’re really roomy inside, nice to drive, comfortable to sit in, and have cool fold up back seats…and the best drink holders in existence. If the transmission goes, I’m going to have to figure out a way to get it fixed because I can’t afford anything else for a long, long time.
Oh, and believe me, I know exactly how lucky I was to have broken down where I did. If I believed in any sort of higher power, that would’ve been the moment. Oddly enough, it was even better than if the belt had broken when I’d been at home. We have an auto parts place not far from us, but not nearly as close as I was to the one yesterday. We don’t have an auto repair place any closer than the car dealer, which is a few miles from the house. It was the perfect spot.
Helly - Honestly, I very briefly thought of offering the guy a few pain meds (broken into safer pieces so as not to make anyone sick) to put on the belt, hoping to not have to give up the rest of my cash, but I thought I’d rather not end up in prison. I’m a sissy and wouldn’t handle it well. Oh, and even though I got a new prescription for pain meds, I don’t need to have it filled for a couple of weeks, so I just dropped it off at the pharmacy to have them hold it. Unlike other people, I don’t run out of my meds because I took too many and need to rush to get the new prescription filled. I also don’t usually have many pills with me (don’t want to get robbed), just enough for one dose if I end up being out longer than expected, but yesterday I happened to have everything with me, so if my doctor wanted, he could count my pills. I have some super addictive meds (to some people, I loathe how they make me feel - like I drank a gallon of Red Bull, when I can’t even handle a single can of Red Bull) that I last had filled in August ‘08, and I have a little more than half of the prescription left. I took in my pain meds, too, so he could see how much I had left, even though my appointments are made for every 28 days (to give people time to get the prescriptions filled in case the pharmacy needs to order the meds)...and I had not two days’ worth left, but two weeks’ worth. After my doctor & I had a little chat about how people who have no experience with pain meds get scared by the Oxycontin stories in the news (the people who die have ALWAYS abused their meds and have almost always combined them with alcohol), we wrapped up my appointment by me asking for the most awesome of drugs…antibiotics. I’ve had swollen glands in my neck for a couple of months and every couple of weeks have had infected tonsils, so I’m hoping a cheapy dose of antibiotics will get rid of my sore throat, inside & out.
Time to go back to bed. This week has wiped me out. Oh, and the “case” was filed yesterday, so the big things are taken care of for a little while.
Flippy on 05/30 at 08:30 AM -
Wow, bad luck with a little good luck thrown in. I’m glad you got help and back on your way in such a short time. Car trouble on the road is one of my worst fears. I’ve been incredibly lucky that 90% of the car trouble I’ve had in my life has happened before I left the driveway. So, what’s the “case” that got filed?
Nancy on 05/31 at 05:55 PM -
Hey, I know I left a comment here yesterday! Didn’t I?
Nancy on 06/02 at 04:46 AM -
Sorry about that, Nancy. I have my comments on moderation again, thanks to the people who don’t want to read my blog, yet can’t seem to tear their eyes away from it.
The “case”? I had to file for bankruptcy to prevent my house from being sold yesterday. :( Hey, if we can get just 15,000 people to donate $10, or 150,000 people to donate $1, perhaps Wee Paws could buy the house in a short sale.
Flippy on 06/02 at 12:20 PM
