Saturday, September 5, 2009

There is absolutely no beauty whatsoever in the breakdown. Trust me.

I think somehow my ancient car developed human intelligence and a scary mechanical desire to take over the world. I'm not sure why, but I think a combination of these factors inspired my car to access the internet, read my blog, and notice that I compared it unfavorably to my roadrunner car.

Seriously, Allison's Minivan, we can work this out, don't be like this. I can give you an oil change. Maybe even a name. Please?

As I've mentioned in previous posts (do you like how I just smugly assumed I have loyal readers?), my office is freezing. I wish I could think of a more poetic way to describe it, but my brain has yet to thaw out even 18 hours after leaving the building. Most days for lunch I sit outside in the sunshine and read a book (with perhaps a tiny bit of people watching thrown in) and warm up, which is the most blissful hour of my day. Not yesterday. Oh, no. Yesterday I decided to eat lunch on my lunch break. I drove to Rofo, grabbed a salad, made awkward smalltalk with relatives who happened to be in the same establishment, and went to my car to drive back to my preferred reading spot.

Have you ever heard a mechanical fart? Because that's basically the only thing my car did, besides weakly displaying a few lights. That's right, my battery was dead. So I did the only thing I could do: I called my dad and left him a pleading voicemail asking him what to do. He was in the process of giving me the number for our insurance company's roadside assistance, but then a giant truck pulled up next to me and two men were offering to help... but they didn't have jumper cables. We started soliciting people for the cables, when finally a pick-up pulls in on the other side and a man emerges wearing a Pennzoil shirt. Oh, thank god. They got my car started for me, and I made it back to work with about two minutes left to eat my lunch. Fortunately standing around the Rofo parking lot warmed me up as much as any intentional basking in sunshine.

But wait, there's more! Last night I babysat until 9:30. My car wouldn't start again. It was alone in a faculty parking lot. The only people around were college students celebrating their first weekend on campus (read: in no condition to help me at all) and campus security, who do not own jumper cables as we have learned from previous experience. Thus, roadside assistance was called. I told them where I was, they told me to expect an automated call telling me the ETA, and then I was really tired so I'm pretty sure I drifted off a couple of times. After over half an hour of waiting for this call, a tow truck randomly shows up and tells me that the insurance company gave them the wrong location and cancelled my call. *blink. blink.* Fortunately the towing people thought to check the parking lots and found me. So I had to call the insurance company again to get a new ticket so the tow truck could get paid. I didn't make it home until midnight. So now my car is sitting in the driveway at my parents' house, demanding a new battery. And a name. In the meantime, I think I'll write a sonnet to the beloved green giant. Maybe that will do some good.




2 comments:

  1. Please please please tell me this isn't all my fault for not giving you back your jumper cables because I am 98% sure I gave them back to you.

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  2. Haha-- you did. Naturally I left them at home. Perfect place for them, right?

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