Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
Friday after work I picked up my car from the body shop. It looked beautiful - better than before, even, because they'd replaced the whole hood, so the nicks in it that have been there for years were gone. I drove it home, walked around it once to admire it, and went inside.
I don't remember what we did Friday evening. Probably just lazed around the house. Saturday morning my parents came over, and we gave Mom her birthday present - a small boom box with radio, tape, and CD player. She plugged it in and we tested the various components. Then we went out to lunch at Chili's, which was good.
After lunch, my parents headed home, and Matt and I got ready to run some errands. It was a warm day, so Matt backed his van out into the street so we could take my car, which has air conditioning. I put the key in the ignition and turned it.
Nothing.
Unbelieving, I checked to make sure the key was in correctly, applied the emergency brake, and tried again. Nothing. Not even the click of the starter motor. I touched the button on the face of the clock/radio, which - even when the car is off - should display the time for a few seconds. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. The battery was completely dead.
Matt pulled back in while I went inside to call the body shop and complain. They're not open on Saturdays. Or Sundays. Or Labor Day. They can't even look at the car until Tuesday. Lovely. I called K.T. and left a message on her answering machine explaining that I wouldn't be able to drive down to her house for the game, and then Matt and I went to run our errands in his car.
I was actually still in a reasonably good mood. Or rather, I was grumpy as all hell about the car, but I was able to tuck that away and not let it spoil the rest of my day. My mom had told me that, after talking with my dad, they didn't want to depart with either set of crystal my mom had, and that if Matt and I picked out a pattern we liked, they'd start buying it for us for my birthday and Christmas and the like. So while Matt went to buy a suit from Brooks Brothers, I poked around in Mikasa. I even bought a few things - a juice pitcher to replace the one we broke; a vase (I've needed a large vase for a while); and some fake flowers to go in our weird blue vase. Then we ran some other errands - the week's comics, a trip to Staples for a few things...
When we got home, there were five messages on our answering machine. Three were from K.T., who was trying to organize the game anyway, up in Williamsburg, and if she could pick me up, did I still want to play? One was a dud, and one was from my parents: When they'd gotten home, the CD part of Mom's boom box had stopped working. I called Dad and talked him through what little tech support I could offer, then told him to just bring the box to me at work Tuesday, and I'd take it back to the store and exchange it.
K.T. picked me up for her game and we went over to William and Mary campus. The game went pretty well - almost astonishingly well, actually, considering other players who aren't my favorite people in the universe. I had great fun playing my character - an older woman who can shake her head with amusement at the diversions of the young. She was a moderately prosperous peasant who decided after all her children were grown and gone that she wanted to see the world. So she had her son the blacksmith make her some chain mail, and got a few lessons from the village's guardsman on how to use her threshing flail and harvesting sickle on something other than grain (she told him she was worried about bandits, living all alone as she did) and then packed up and left.
Kevin's playing a cavalier - a young, unlanded noble. My character's more than willing to let him lead most of the time; she's grown up as a peasant, after all. But every now and then, when the rest of the party was flailing around, her instincts for mothering and managing a farm would take over and she'd start issuing orders. And when Kevin's character was mooning around courting the lord's daughter, well... K.T. was laughing her ass off at the faces I was making.
I had me a damn good time, I did.
Sunday we slept late and loafed around some more, then had the practice combat session for Matt's 7th Sea game. That didn't go quite as well for me - my character really isn't meant for combat. Especially melee combat, though she's a fair shot with a bow. I'm afraid being grumpy about the car and all caught up with me and I spent most of the second half of the session glaring at Matt from across the room, as if it were his fault I made the character that way.
Poor Matt. I'm thinking the regular games will be less frustrating for me - they won't be all combat, and I'll actually get a chance to do something useful occasionally. Besides, once the game starts, I'll be able to use the character's magical powers, which I didn't want to reveal in a practice session without roleplaying.
Monday we met Braz and Kris for lunch at the Olive Garden, and then went to the Lenox outlet to continue shopping for crystal. Lenox makes our china pattern, so I was hoping to find something from them for crystal, as well. And after some back and forth, we finally decided on the Firelight Gold pattern as being attractive without overbearing, comfortable to hold in our hands, and a nice bridge between our rather baroque silver (beggars can't be choosers) and our lovely, simple, and elegant Eternal china.
So. Back to the car. Tuesday morning, at 8:00 sharp, I called the body shop. After some discussion, they gave me the number of the towing company they use, and had me call them to either give me a jump or tow me in to the shop. The towing company couldn't come for me until 9:30, so I spent a good while lounging around the house reading.
Finally, the wrecker arrived. The pleasant older man driving it brought out a battery-in-a-box, with jumper cables attached, and hooked it up to my car. Neat. Wish I had one. (Maybe I should add it to my wishlist?)
My battery drained his by about half before he decided it wasn't enough. He pulled out the longest pair of jumper cables I'd ever seen, and hooked my car directly to his massive truck. Another ten minutes of charging, and my car started. He followed me up to the body shop, then wished me a pleasant day.
I'd just called my dad to come pick me up when the shop's owner called me outside to look at the car. Apparently, as part of the service, the mechanic who'd fixed my car's body had gone over the dashboard with Armor-All, and had accidently switched my dome light on. I hadn't noticed it, because it had been daylight when I'd picked the car up, and I would only have looked in the light's direction to notice it when the car's door was open - when the light is on anyway.
So they sent me on my way. Figuring that I'd already wasted most of the morning and another fifteen minutes wouldn't hurt, I drove a few doors down to the SpeeDee oil change. My oil light had been coming on for a couple of weeks, and I'd just been putting off getting it changed until the body work was done.
I'd been sitting in the SpeeDee's lobby for about five minutes when the mechanic called me outside. The car was practically out of oil altogether (well, yeah, I knew that, since the light had been coming on), the air filter was disgusting (not surprising)... The serpentine belt had cracks in the rubber I could see from three feet away. And the mechanic pointed out radiator fluid seeping from underneath a box up against the firewall, and told me that my heater coil had gone bad - if I didn't replace it, the first time I turned on the heater I'd have radiator fluid all over the passenger side of my interior.
Well. I sighed, asked "How long?" and called my dad to come and pick me up, after all.
I called after the estimated time had gone by, and was told it would be about another hour or so. I waited another hour and a half and was told it would be another hour. I called an hour later and was told it would be half an hour. How annoying.
But they kept the shop open late so I could come in and pick up my car, for which I thanked them all profusely. I checked to make sure all my lights were doing what they were supposed to, and went home.
This morning, as I gathered up my purse and lunch and stuff, I thought, "The car had better work. I'm blocking Matt in."
I am a priestess of Murphy, and my god loves me.
The battery was dead. At least the dashboard lights came on and it tried to turn over this time. So Matt pushed my car out to the street, then drove his car over the lawn so he could position it next to mine, and we got the jumper cables out of my trunk.
My jumper cables aren't quite long enough to reach across an engine. After we got the cars as close together as possible, I was straining to get the black clip close enough to my engine to touch something - anything - metal, and it slipped, and the copper black clip touched the copper red clip.
No, I don't know why only half of these clips are insulated with rubber. On the other hand, as hot as it got, maybe I'm grateful my thumb was only burned where it was holding the clip and not covered with molten rubber. Third degree burns - even little tiny ones - hurt like hell. I'm here to tell you. And it's a damn good thing I only need the side of my thumb to type with.
So here I am at work. I took the spare key out of my glove compartment so I could leave the car running and still lock it. I'm hoping it was dead this morning because it was still "tired" from yesterday and didn't run enough to actually recharge. When it's been running a couple of hours, I'll turn the car off. If it loses its charge by four-thirty, when I'm ready to go home, it'll be a problem with the battery no longer holding a charge, and Dad's promised to take me to the auto parts store down the street so I can get a new battery and replace it for me.
But I think, just to be safe, I'll try to get home before Matt, and back into the driveway so if I have to be jumped again tomorrow, at least the vehicles are lined up better.
My wrist is much better today - hardly any pain at all, even when I deliberately lean on it. Yesterday, it hurt so bad I couldn't even spread my fingers out. So naturally, today, when I have a doctor's appointment to have it looked at, the pain is mostly gone.
I don't know what I should do. If I cancel the appointment, will the pain come back? (Superstitious of me, I know, but I developed that "priestess of Murphy" line for a reason.) I'm keeping the wrist wrapped. Maybe I'll just wait until noon and see how I feel. Or maybe I should just cancel the appointment until my car is working again.
Oh, and yesterday was my brother's birthday. Happy Birthday, John!
Word of the Day: gravamen - the significant part of a grievance or complaint
I wish I had a mechanic I can trust. I'm convinced the big chains are only out to rip me off, and that the small stores are full of incompetants who are going to screw me over by accident, if not design. I haven't had many experiences with mechanics that belie that distrust, either.
The real gravamen of my frustration isn't even the fact that I'm paying for unnecessary work. It's that I hate the time wasted, when I get my car back and it fails again immediately.
- Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey
- Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
Current Projects:
- muttering about my car
Diet Progress: 11.5 lbs lost
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