Bad Car-ma
Our poor li'l Kia Sportage has had a bad year. In March, it had a timing chain & clutch transplant. In June, it got t-boned and needed extensive body-work. This week, the brakes went.
[This is, incidentally, why I haven't posted since early in the week - I haven't been home much, as will be explained.]
I got up Wednesday, got into the car (which still smelled faintly of dog-poo from Tuesday) and headed to work. At the exit to our complex (all right, trailer-park), there's a stop-sign. As I braked, I heard a loud "pop," and, putting the car back in gear, found it running roughly and making an odd noise. I pulled over to the shoulder to check it out, thinking I might have blown a tire or something. Didn't find anything visibly wrong, so I decided to continue on the the Shell station at the corner. It was then I discovered that the shoulder of the road is very sandy and was slightly damp. Before I knew it, the right rear wheel had spun axle-deep into the sand.
I walked home and woke Corwyn up (he would've been getting up in a few anyway; he leaves about 1.5 hours after I do), explained the situation, and waited while he got dressed.
Fortunately, nobody had rear-ended the car while I was gone. We spent 10 or so minutes unsuccessfully trying to shift the car using a shovel and a bit of plywood, while a small crowd gathered to watch the fun.
At the point I was ready to give up and call a tow-truck, three guys appeared from inside the park. They were Mexicans (we have a lot of migrant-workers around here in the winter, to work in the strawberry-fields [forever]) and spoke no English, but they smiled and made it clear that they wanted to help. What we couldn't manage with ingenuity, they accomplished with brute force. They unstuck the car, then turned around and walked away without a word, while I called "Muchos, muchos gracias!" after them - the full extent of my command of Spanish.
Corwyn then took the car up to the Shell and back, to see if he could figure out what was wrong. He did. The brakes failed and, apparently, some part of them -fell off- the car! He wasn't going fast, and had warning that the car was messed up (the brakes were making a funny noise before this, and we were going to get them checked this weekend anyway), so, while harrowing, this wasn't life-threatening, and he got the poor Kia back in the driveway safely. Where she sits. Until we can get her towed to the shop. Which we couldn't do until Corwyn renewed the Triple-A. Which we couldn't do until he got paid yesterday. *sigh*
So, I rode to work with Corwyn and, after all that, was only an hour late, which was okay, since I had to stay at work until Corwyn could pick me up, which was an hour-plus later anyway. And, since Wednesday is choir-rehearsal night, we didn't get home until nearly 10:00pm.
Thursday was another car-sharing day. The stress of having my routine so messed-with made me so tired that Corwyn could tell I wasn't up to cooking dinner, so we went out to Sonny's, and didn't get home until nearly 9:00pm, which is CSI, the only show I make it a point to watch.
Friday, repeat Thursday, substituting "Quiznos" for "Sonny's" and "Joan of Arcadia" for "CSI."
Today, I got to sleep in, then nap this afternoon, so I'm feeling nearly human again. Of course, on top of everything else, the refrigerator has decided to piddle all over the kitchen floor. Googling revealed that we need to clean the "drain pan." Tomorrow, I think!
On the plus side, though, I had e-mail conversations with three different high-school friends on Friday. Considering that I went to HS from 1978-1981 in St. Louis, having three friends I still keep in touch with is pretty amazing!
What is it about November, anyway? It was in November of 1998 that Corwyn got into the car-accident that totalled my Neon and broke his hand enough to require surgery (with pins!). In November of 2002, Corwyn had his appendix out. And, of course, November of last year when the Sentra got totalled. I won't feel safe for another couple of weeks.