Driving Along in My Automobile…

We’re having car trouble.   Big car trouble.   It started two weeks ago and I complained and complained to Chris that something was wrong with my car and finally this weekend I decided to quit complaining and take my car in somewhere.   So I go by the Firestone (a.k.a. They Who Ripped Me Off) up the street and tell them that my car is making noise when I accelerate and when I brake.

One day and $1,000 later, my car has new ball joints, new front break pads, and new rotors.   Funny how you can have all this new stuff and STILL HAVE THE SAME FREAKING NOISE YOU TOOK THE CAR IN FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!   So, I take my car back up there yesterday and as politely as I can say through clentched teeth, I tell them that the problem seems to still be there even though they did ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of work on it this weekend.   The guy jiggles some things around, points out some things that I wouldn’t know were good or bad, and says that I’m good to go.

But this morning as I drove to work, the noise from my car was so much louder that it drowned out my early morning rendition of When a Man Loves a Woman.   This is a mortal sin in my book.   Not to mention I roll up in the faculty parking lot (which I park in illegally) all nice and whiney like.   Every dog within a 5 mile radius was baying at me.   Hard to park illegally under those conditions.

So, I come inside and call Chris at work.

“Something’s wrong with the car still,” I say.   “Its still making that (explative) noise!”

“What does it sound like?” he asks.

“Its like a whining noise.”

“A whining noise?” he says, like he doesn’t believe me.

“Yeah, it whines.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“I don’t know, Chris.   Its whining.   Its making a noise like a whine.   I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“I don’t know what a whining noise is,” he says.

“WwwweeeeEEEEEE….   WWWwwweeeeEEEEE!!!!”   I start whining quietly at my desk.   “WwwweeeEEEEEE….”

“Okay, okay, I get it.   I’ll look at it tonight.”

At this point I have attracted not only every dog within a 5 mile radius, but all my co-workers are congregating around my office door, peeking in to see if I have lost my mind.

“Car trouble,” I mouth to them.

“Ohhh…” and they all smile and nod their heads knowingly.

Freaking car trouble.   Its the pits.   I hate not being able to argue with someone, and I absolutely cannot argue with mechanics (a.k.a. They Who Ripped Me Off) because I don’t know what the hell they are talking about.   It’d be like my doctor saying, “You have chicken pox,” and me saying, “Bull.”   How the crap would I know?   So it makes me feel very vulnerable.   Completely out of control.

Maybe that’s why when I got home tonight and Chris met me in the driveway in bare feet and a flashlight, I swooned a little.   Something about seeing him shimmy under that car with some tools…   MMmmm…   Nothing better than a boy who can start your engine (yuck, yuck, yuck).

I just wish he had started it BEFORE the ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS….