to be quite honest with you, my sad big old mercury sable has really been more trouble than its worth from the day i got it. the air conditioner only runs on high. the sun roof button has slipped up inside the roof console so you have to fish around up there to open and close it while trying not to get a nasty shock from the bundle of wires. it had no working radio (despite the fact that it had 2 consoles) so that had to be purchased. and then the transmission problems started. so what did i do? i parked it.... and ignored it. the patented megan way of dealing with any problem.
so, 9 months later, its time to do something again with it. suddenly it has become very necessary that i have my own car again because huey needs his for going to client meetings and whatnot. soooo... huey and i decide on my saturday off to go over, jump the car, drive it down to a level area (because it was on our ridiculously steep old driveway) and then have it towed up to a shop in marietta. little did we know that something which sounds so simple can be infinately harder if the gods are against you.
first of all, we woke up late saturday and found our power off in our apartment. add this to the fact that we were hung over from staying up way too late friday night with our neighbors and you see how it wasn't a nice start to our day. we figured the first thing you do with a hangover is throw comfort food at it, so we headed to church's to get some mashed potatoes, gravy, and macaroni and cheese. i think we threw a piece or two of chicken in there somewhere. oh, and some corn nuggets... yes, corn nuggets. anyway, after that we get on the highway to go the two exits to our old apt and promptly hit a bunch of traffic because they are doing road construction. what is worse is that we knew they were doing road construction and knew not to get on the highway but hey, hangovers make you stupid. so we are goin along and someone pulls up to us and starts yelling and pointing at the back of our car. our gas tank is open? that's weird... we haven't gotten gas in days. huey figures then our antennae is falling off or has fallen off because jay on margaritas likes to do silly things like loosen our antennae. we could have only been so lucky. no... we have a flat tire. so we limp off of the next exit, pull over and survey it. luckily, its not totally flat. in fact, it's got a nail in it. we'll just put some more air in it and deal with it later. so we take it to the new apt and use our handy cigarette lighter air pump and pump it back up.
okay, so... we finally actually get to the apt. now we have to get my car started. after a lot of arguing and a few sparks flying, we get the jumper cables hooked up correctly. huey insisted i wear my sunglasses in case a battery exploded, and i finally consented figuring he knows a thing or two about freak accidents after the fondue incident. so we let them sit for a minute, my car starts dinging, the inside panel comes on, i'm feeling confident, i turn the wheel and.... and it sounded like it was outta gas or something. waited a few more minutes, crossing my fingers... no luck. okay, so the car won't start. we'll call the town guy anyway and figure it out later. so we do that and i check my cars fluid levels. needs an oil change definately... it's like black molasses. ugh. and it seems to be totally out of transmission fluid. which is the problem i knew it had. so we sit down to wait our 90 min at the house while the tow truck comes.
about 1 minute after huey hangs up with the towing people, we hear a loud snap, a crap (a pop) and a crash. ooooh... that was definately a tree somewhere. hoping it didn't hit the road and knowing that it couldn't because we had definately had our fair share of things going wrong for the day, we hop in pepe to check it out and go get a drink at QT (oh yeah, our old apt has no water either. woo hoo). not only did a tree fall across the road, but it knocked over two or three other trees while it was at it, fell across our road and filled a lane and a half of the road that ours branches off of. *sigh* we cancelled the tow truck. huey got to call 911, and we walked to QT for our drinks. then we sat around for 45 min while we watched the firefighters cut up the trees. then we decided to blow the whole thing off for the day and go out for brad's birthday. good plan.
so sunday evening we head back over to get the damn thing towed once and for all. oddly enough, it ended up that huey, me, jay and josh were all at the old place at the same time. the tow guy showed up and said that we had to get it down to the bottom of the hill. okay, pop it in neutral and we'll just roll down. so i sit in the seat and the guys push me back while i'm yanking on the wheel trying to get my back end to swing around so i can point my front end at the hill and go down forwards. the car of course has no power steering so this is a lot harder than it seems at first. so then everyone tells me to just ease it down the driveway, to go very very slow and keep my foot on the brake. they said if it starts to get away from me or won't stop, just throw it in park and it'll stop automatically. okay... deep breath. let's go.
definately the some of the scariest 15 seconds of my life. i hate that damn hill. i let the car roll for about five feet then slammed the brakes to the floorboard. power brakes don't work without power. and the hill is too steep and the car too big to just stop once its going. so i get about half way down and realize it's not stopping and that i'm not going to be able to turn it without the steering working and that i'm going to go through that guardrail that is rushing up towards me (or that i'm rushing down towards) so i risk taking my hand off the wheel for a second to punch the car into park.... and the thing keeps going. so with both arms i yank the wheel hard to the left and just manage to get it to turn when the front wheels hit the road and i come gliding to a stop, really glad that no other cars had been coming at that moment. i got out of the car and my arms and brake leg were shaking like crazy. stupid car... stupid hill.
after a lot of pushing and pulling we got it up on the tow truck and got it to marietta. in fact, i'm on my way out just now because they open at 8 and i need to talk to them and drop off the keys. i just hope they don't come back and tell me that it's going to be a whole crap load of money because i don't have it and unfortunately you can't crap it out like the name implies. so that was my weekend... a comedy of errors. murphy's law at its best.
