Chris and I were prepared for snow. Various weather reports were predicting 6-12 inches of snow, and luckily we both had the day off from work. The plan was that we would get up at our usual time, shovel the backyard for the dogs, shovel the driveway for our cars, bring Chris’s car in for an oil change and a diagnostic, and then take my car to the first of Chris’s two appointments. Once we returned from his appointments, we would pick up his car and come home for some quality time with our TiVo.
That was the plan, anyway.
We woke up about half an hour later than usual, after Chris hit the snooze button on the alarm a few too many times.
“I don’t hear snow plows,” Chris said.
“Maybe they already finished.”
Chris got out of bed and moved the window shade aside.
“There’s nothing out there!” he said.
I generally preferred to stay in bed as long as possible, but this news was too big to ignore. I got up and looked through the window, just to make sure Chris wasn’t exaggerating.
“Well, there’s some snow,” I said. “Maybe three inches?”
By now, Chris was halfway down the stairs. “Three inches? Not even!” He opened the front door. “I can still see the driveway.”
“Hey, good! Now we don’t have to shovel!” I finished dressing, and came downstairs. The driveway was clear, but there was some snow on our cars.
Chris was nearly done shoveling the snow from his car when I came out to start cleaning mine. “I’m going to drive ahead to the car place so you don’t have to wait for me,” he said. “Just pick me up when you’re done.”
I finished cleaning my car, and then, because I thought I had some time to kill, I got the shovel and tidily swept up the bits of snow that had fallen from our cars. Then I got in my car and started it.
Except it wouldn’t start.
The engine groaned and coughed and spat, but refused to catch. Fresh from taking an 8 week car class, I popped the hood open and professionally surveyed what lay underneath. Yes, there was the coolant. Level–fine. There was the radiator fluid–level also fine. And the engine oil–excellent, the level was right in the middle of the expected area. And that was about all I remembered how to do, without a lift and without having done any actual hands-on work in the class.
Yesterday my car had been perfectly fine. A good car, even. Today it was a BAD car.
I went back inside the house. Paco was watching me from the window, and tried to seduce me into snuggling with him on the couch, but I was a woman on a mission–an impossible mission, but one I was prepared to attempt. I called my husband. Maybe he would magically be able to figure out what was wrong with my car, even though he wasn’t here and had less interest in the workings of cars than I did.
I called his cell phone. I heard it ringing, and not just on the other end of the line. His phone was ringing inside our house. Just to make sure though, I kept calling his phone, and eventually tracked it down to his nightstand.
Okay, so the cell phone was out. What did people do before cell phones? I called the dealership where Chris was bringing his car for service.
A woman answered, and I asked if Chris was there, after explaining he was dropping off his car. She said, “Hold on a minute,” and then hung up on me.
I called back. I was, after all, a woman on a mission. I asked again for my husband, and this time she found him.
“What’s up?” Chris said.
“My car won’t start. I have to call my mechanic guy!”
“Uh-oh.” He thought this over. “Well, I can get the courtesy shuttle to take me back there.”
“Okay, I’ll try the mechanic.”
Now, if we’d both been thinking clearly, we would have decided that Chris should take his car back and drive it to the appointments, since it looked like my car wasn’t going to work. But we didn’t think of this until after Chris had arrived home.
By then, I’d called my mechanic and explained the problem. He asked what the car sounded like. I hesitated, and I remembered my car class teacher saying that it was much easier to figure out what was wrong with someone’s car if you could imitate the noise it was making. I couldn’t imitate it, so I just said, “It’s coughing, and won’t start.”
He said, “Does it sound like this?” and made the noise.
“Yes! Exactly!”
“Okay, you’ll have to bring it in, but we’re pretty booked today so I’m not sure we’ll be able to get to it.”
I called the VW Roadside Assistance line.
“Does it just need a jump start, or towing?” the customer service rep asked.
“Um…I didn’t leave any lights on…so I don’t think a jump start will help. Just towing, I guess,” I said.
I arranged for a tow truck to pick it up and take it to my mechanic, but I was still thinking about the jump start. Maybe all it needed was a jump start. Wouldn’t that be foolish of me to take it all the way in for service?
So I called my next door neighbor, who brought her car over. I looked in my little notebook that I’d used for car class, and muttering “Negative live to negative dead, negative live to negative dead” to myself, I went outside and tried to jump start the car.
The car wouldn’t start, so I was pretty sure jumping wasn’t going to help it. I was fairly confident that I’d done the jump start correctly, but not so confident that our jumper cables were actually in working order.
The tow truck driver arrived, and tried to start my car. He kept cranking it, and just as I was about to say, “Uh, hey mister, will that maybe kill my engine?” he said to me, “I just towed another diesel this morning with the same exact problem.”
Instantly, he became my best friend. “Oh, good!! Then I’m not going crazy!” I exclaimed happily.
“Yeah, I managed to get it to start finally, but I still brought it in for service.”
He backed up my car, and then started walking to his truck.
“I’m not supposed to say this, since I’m contracted by them,” he said, “but I’ve been seeing a lot of VWs and Audis getting towed lately. They’re just falling apart.”
My new best friend had just broken my heart. I started worrying about whether I should get a new car.
The tow truck driver brought me and Chris and my poor dead car to my mechanic. Based on the mechanic’s parking lot, he was very, very busy today.
Now all we needed was a car. We had planned on taking a taxi from the mechanic to my mom’s workplace to borrow her car for the day, but we couldn’t find the taxi company.
We walked to the end of the street, and stood there, arguing over which way to go. The tow truck driver pulled up to us.
“You guys lost?”
He loaned us his map, and Chris discovered we were pretty close to the hospital where my mother worked.
The tow truck driver went on his way, and we started walking.
“Good thing I grabbed my gloves out of the car before I left it,” I remarked.
A few chilly blocks later, Chris spoke up. “Sure wish I’d brought my winter coat.”
“Yeah, that probably would have helped.”
I called my mother, and told her we were walking and would be there soon.
We kept walking. Eventually I noticed I couldn’t feel my thighs anymore, but I told Chris that was okay because I didn’t really need them.
My mother called. Apparently she’d just needed some time to assimilate the information I’d given her.
“Why are you walking?” she said. “Do you need me to pick you up? It’s cold today!”
“We’re fine, Mom!” I said. “I think we’re almost there, but I’ll call you if we need to be picked up.”
Chris and I turned into the emergency room entrance, but I felt we would be closer to my mom’s office if we walked up a snowy hill to the employee parking lot.
“Watch out for the thorns,”Chris warned. He was slightly ahead of me, turning aside tree branches and unbloomed rose bushes.
“Good thing it’s not spring,” I said. “We wouldn’t be able to hike through here.”
We got to the top of the hill, and Chris started walking toward the medical office building.
“Wait, Chris, I think this way’s shorter.” I pointed toward the emergency entrance.
“Then why did we just climb that hill? We could have just stayed on the road and it would have taken the same amount of time.”
“No, this way we cut the corner.”
He stopped, and looked at me in despair. “No way did we just cut a corner. Look, we could have just followed the street we were on and it would have come out right here.”
“Hmm, I’m really cold,” I said loudly. “Whose idea was it not to get the taxi? I seem to remember it was yours.”
We proceeded in silence to the emergency entrance, but as we got closer, I noticed a sign for the designated smoking area. My mom was always complaining about the smoking area being right by her office, so we followed the smoking signs.
“I don’t see your mom,” Chris said warily.
“She sits right by the window,” I said. We walked up to an exit door, and peered into the window beside it. I banged on the door, and my mother came out.
By now she was used to me, and didn’t find the fact that I’d arrived via the back entrance odd at all.
She gave us her keys, and we headed off to Chris’s appointment. He’d had to reschedule the first appointment for another day because of the problems getting a car, but we made it to his other one without delay.
And all the way to his appointment, I practiced imitating my engine.
“EEEEEEE,” I said. “Does that sound like it?”
“No, more like you’re trying to sing,” Chris said.
“Eh-oh-eh-oh-eh-oh,” I tried again.
“Better,” Chris said. He looked like he was trying not to laugh, so I felt that was enough practicing for now.
A few hours later, Chris’s appointment was over and we’d picked up Chris’s car and returned my mother’s car to her. I couldn’t reach my mechanic on the phone, so we decided to stop by to find out what was going on.
My car was still parked in the same location as we’d left it that morning.
“I don’t think he had time to look at it,” Chris said.
I walked inside the shop. Greg, the mechanic, was on the phone.
“We finished the work on your car,” he said to the phone, “but honestly, if this were my car, I wouldn’t put any more money into it.”
He paused and listened.
“Yes, I completely understand. The coolant leak’s been fixed, and we took care of the other issue, but —” and then he said some technical stuff that I didn’t understand, ending with “I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
He listened again.
“I can’t believe no one else told you about these problems. They should have. It’s terrible. I can see you’ve put time and money into this car, but truthfully, you may have to start thinking about how much more you want to do with this. You should take your time, and talk to other people.”
He continued, “You know, I really wish I had better news for you. I’m so sorry, but you can pick up the car tomorrow and take it home, and think about how much longer — a week, a few months — you want to hold on to it. When you’re ready, you can call me and tell me what you want to do. And if you decide to go for another car, maybe a used car, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.”
He hung up the phone.
He turned to me and said, “I didn’t have time to look at your car today, but definitely first thing tomorrow I can look at it. Now did you have any problems with the car before today?”
“No, it was absolutely fine,” I said. “I drove it to work and back and as of last night, it was normal.”
“So what happened when you tried to start it? You went through the normal procedure, and it just wouldn’t start?”
“Right. I turned it on and it –” I thought briefly about making the engine noise, but felt it wasn’t ready for a public performance yet — “and it kind of choked and wheezed.”
“Okay, I’ll look at it tomorrow and let you know what I find out.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
I turned around and walked back to Chris’s car. I was disappointed that my car wasn’t diagnosed yet, but things could have been worse. I could have been the man on the phone with Greg, finding out that his car needed to be put down.