A long and boring story

One of the reasons I bought a new car is that nowadays, it's not simple to work on cars.  I used to travel with a crappy vehicle and a box full of tools, and NEVER once had to call the wrecker on a road trip to get me there, although I had many chances.  I was inspired to independence of this sort by my father who seemed able to fix anything.  I was coming home from Keesler AFB in Biloxi one evening and overheated going up what's called the "high Rise" in New Orleans.  I limped on down the interstate to an exit and asked a person in the neighborhood if I could use their phone.  In those days kids, the phone was hanging on the wall inside of the house, it was kooky.  And you had better look honest or you'd be walking to a pay phone in an area without too many pay phones.  My dad came to get me, and within 45 minutes of my call, he showed up with water, tools and electrical tape.  He took the hose off the car, wrapped tape around and around and around it, then took out a knife, carefully cut the tape, and replaced the hose on the car.  He filled it back up with water and we got home with no further issues.  That made me really impressed with my already iconic father.  The only thing he couldn't fix with steel, wood or duct tape was Cancer.  Oh what 25 more good years wouldn't have done for his legend.  

But when you see something like that, and the cars you own are old enough to actually FIX, it nourishes a part of you that you never knew was there.  It makes you believe anything is possible when you are left on the side of the road.  And it also showed me an important lesson.  When you are far from home in a car, BE PREPARED for anything.  You can't fix much anymore without a computer and wires and power and a lift.  But I felt like what I could fix, I was ready for.  Bouyed with this confidence, I went on a 12 hour road trip to The Shack Herf in Northern Ohio.

The trip up was uneventful.  Its the trip home that causes me to want to write all this down.  If I hadn't lived it, I would swear it was something out of The Truman Show.

I left my motel room at 8am local time.  Which meant when I got home I would be actually be pulling up at 7pm, owing to the time zone difference.  So I was pumped up and ready to go.  40 minutes down the road I realized somehow that I had left my dirty clothes on the suitcase stand in the room.  I did a little bad math and realized I could just blow em off.  Apart from the embarassment of having your drawers there for all to see or sniff, the gas required for a 'quick" 80 minute jaunt to get them would be worth more than the clothes.....except for my GEAUX TIGERS shirt!  Damnit!  Even then the math did NOT warrant a return trip, I could simply order another.  But still I turned around.  Because I am an idiot.  

So now I am behind by an hour and a half as I get back to the place where I had originally turned around to go back to the motel.  I DID actually do one thing right in that sequence.  When I left that morning, I left the door unlocked.  It was to be my only victory of the day and not much of one at that.  But I was able to pull up, grab my crap and go without involving anyone or waiting for them to realize how important the matter was.  So that worked out uneventfully.  However, as I made my way further down the interstate, I noticed that under my ice chest, which was riding shotgun, there was a bit of condensate forming on my upholstery.  Now normally water is no big deal to me, I knew it wasn't WET wet.  But I DO love me some new car smell.  Moisture deep in my upholstery might jeopardize the lovely aroma of my car on a hot day, all new and stuff, despite it's 2 year old reality.  So I pulled over immediately, and did NOT wait until I needed gas an hour down the road.  I dumped the ice chest out and got back on the road.....for a minute, that is.

There are two things I like about modern cars and not much else.  First was how easy it was to install cruise control on this little rocket.  Its all a matter of voltage control now, no pain in the butt throttle linkages and vacuum hoses and sensors.  Just a couple of wires.  DONE.  The second thing is the sensor that tells a motorist that his tire is going flat.  The way cars handle today, I could have shredded my tire and part of my rim before I realized, Social Distortion cranked up loud, that I had a flat tire.  DING, DING, DING, it sang out to me.  I watched the indicator go from 30psi to 27 to 22 to 18 to 12 to 'screw this, I am pulling over now'....

I had punctured my tire on a road hazard on the shoulder where I had emptied out my cooler.  I could have EASILY waited an hour and dumped it when I filled up with gas.  BUT NO!  I had to do it RIGHT THEN.  So a perfectly good tire is wasted.  But here is where the beginning of the story comes in.  I am totally prepared.  I am not in the mood to change a tire, but I am ready.  I have both tire plugs and a tire inflator.  So I take the crap jack and jack up the car, naturally emptying my trunk out onto the roadside like some kind of  idiot.  I take off the flat, plug it with two plugs and air it up.  I put it back on, jack it down, load up my crap and hit the road.

And for 5 glorious hours, it held.  I was tickled.  I had beaten the beast again.  Back when I had old used trucks and hand me down family cars, I broke down on every trip.  It was just a simple truth of life, that I would have car trouble when travelling anywhere for over 4 hours.  But I always fixed it.  And this time I had fixed it again.  Until I hit Nashville.  I stopped for gas and some cat drove up in a beat up truck and said "Hey man, can you spare some gas?"  Was this karma, asking me if I wanted to take a chance on pissing off the gods of the wheel?  Was it actually Jesus, as many of us have been warned to expect in our youth?  No, I was sure it was just another bum that catches people stopped and vulnerable at gas stations.  Poor guy, though.  His pitch was weak.  In Memphis they turn off the engine as they pull in beside you at the pumps and tell their tale of woe, about how they had been on fumes on the interstate and JUST made it to the gas station before they ran clean out.  I have had this one pulled on me three times in 9 years of living in Memphis.  Every time it happens and I tell them to piss off, they get in their cars, start them up and drive off cursing me.  So much for their story.  But this guy in Nashville had a weak pitch.  And one messed up truck.  It sounded like a slow motion traffic accident as it pulled away and crossed the street to the gas station on the other side of the highway.  He may have just been panhandling gas, but he was NOT a Rockerfeller, I was now convinced.  Maybe I SHOULD have given him a little gas.  Being broke because you like crystal meth is the same broke as when you just have no money and no job.  One is only a little better than the other.  But in the end, I did not help him, and sure enough, he pulled in beside some other sap, whom I waved my arms at to let him know what he was in for.  He left there with no gas and went under the interstate to the Mapco station to try again.  A missed karmic opportunity?  You decide.

I started for home, full of gas and a quarter pounder with cheese in my belly for extra luck.   DING, DING, DING sang Karma.  34, 28, 27, 25, 22, 18, 17, big truck behind me, crap, 14, 13, 10, 8, 5....pulled over.  Major pain in the butt, but hey, I have 12 plugs, I'll just replace em and get back on the road.  So I do.  And a whole mile down the road, it starts again, DING, DING, DING...........

Shit.

The tire would no longer hold plugs.  I could have put more in, maybe THREE this time, maybe be a little more careful installing them.  But in the end I thought "Hey, this was all nice, kept me able to go fast all the way home, but I still have my baby-spare AND a air pump that can top it off.  The worst thing is I have to go a lot slower on a spare, and it's getting dark and I am still 3 hours from home.  My nice 7 pm get-home time was looking like 10:30 if I was lucky.  So I got the spare on, got up to speed and immediately ran into road construction that had three lanes of traffic choking down to one slow bumper to bumper crawl.  I am SO GLAD at this point that I decided to get gas, or I would have let karma not just beat me but maybe even pull down my pants and defile me right there on the side of the road.

Once I cleared the construction traffic, it was a long, slow, dark trip home.  In the end I had 3 hours and 15 minutes worth of stupid-ass BS and trouble, ALL FOR THE LOVE OF NEW CAR SMELL.  So remember kids, the road is a dangerous place.  If you need to do something, make sure you ask yourself, 'can it wait until I stop for gas?'