AAAAAARRRRRGGH
My ex-wife had an annoying habit of picking fights with me whenever I was pressed with a deadline. Usually I would get home from classes and say "This project is due at 2 p.m. tomorrow, I'm going to finish it." She would start some fight over some irrelevant peice of fluff and we'd fight for several hours. Finally she would call it quits, and insist that we go to bed, because she's tired. I would tell her that I need to stay up and finish my project, so another fight breaks out. Usually around 2 a.m. she would give up and go to her room, and I would fall asleep over whatever project it was, waking up just in time to shower, change, eat breakfast, and leave so I wasn't late for class. It is important to note that no progress gets made on the project.
These last two weeks have been very similar, with the exception that my wife (the new one) brings me food, tells me I'm doing a good job, and then stays out of my way when I'm pressed for a deadline. She's been very good about this. So what happens? Last Friday I was on my way to a class, to take the final, and smoke starts billowing out of my vents. I pull over on the interstate, thinking that something has gone horribly wrong under the hood. I check the oil and it's pretty low. I walk back about half a mile to a shell station, pay an extremely high price for two quarts of oil, and walk back. I put the oil in and the truck starts just fine, but it still bellows smoke at me. I figure out that if I turn off the fan the smoke lessens, but it still streams in the cab when I drive. Thinking that it's still under the hood, I get off the freeway and attempt to take the back roads. I end up essentially where I started from and take a longer route through downtown to get to the class. I hoped to avoid interstates but I have to take one anyway.
I got to my class about an hour late and the final had been in progess for about 20 minutes. It's an open book small groups final, but I have to take it by myself until I get caught up with my group. This actually wasn't so hard. I call my wife and let her know that the truck is smoking and I'm a bit nervous. The class is really close to my in-laws house so we decide that I'll drive the car over there (so I don't leave it in a parking lot at a school over the weekend) and she will pick me up. We go out for desert and we drive home. I get back to work on my research paper. Actually, I think I waste the evening playing Diablo 2 (Curse of the Geek Graduate). Saturday I have an all day class (yes, after the final) and drop my wife off at her folks and get lost (again) getting to class, so I'm 20 minutes late again. I get through the last day, get back to my in-laws, but my wife has been unable to do anything with the truck because there were no trusted mechanics open on Saturday. We leave the car until Sunday, which involved Church, My Fair Lady, and dinner at a Japanese restaraunt. I learn how dangerous sushi can be.
This morning I drove my wife to work, then headed to my truck, found a mechanic who can work on it tomorrow, and head home. The original plan was that I would drive the truck to the mechanics, because it's still drivable. It appears that my heating coil is dead, and the strange liquid we found on the floor of the passengers seat is possibly anti-freeze. I find that it is anti-freeze. I come home and got to work. I am supposed to pick my wife up at 2:30 so we can move the truck.
Most cars beep at you when you turn them off and remove the key if the lights are still on. My wife's car is not one of those. I left the lights on for several hours and when I left the house at 2:10, the battery was dead. My neighbors work nights or days, so they were all either home asleep or at work. I pulled out a pair of jumper cables and set upon the task of opening the hood. Some time ago my wife was in an accident and some work had to be done on the front end. This means that the only way to open the hood is to simultaneously pull the hood release in the cab and pull up on the front edge of the hood. This is a job for Mr. Fantastic. After about 15 minutes of careful prodding with a screwdriver and pulling the release a few hundred times, I got the hood open. Now to find a live battery. Our apartment complex is right behind a gas station, so I went looking for Samaritans. Three people were hanging out in front of the shop but they didn't have a car. There was a porche and a van at the pumps. The three guys who were apparently hanging out told me that the guy in the porche probably wouldn't help. I asked anyway, and he claimed that he couldn't open the hood of his car. Right. I asked the driver of the van if he could spare a few minutes and he did more than that.
He drove to the car, and his battery was one of those clearly designed to be unjumpable. The nodes were covered in thick rubber, leaving only two tiny knobs to attach the jumper cables to. I thought jumper cables would have grips on the front nose of the clamps, but the cables from my wifes car didn't have them. I also noticed that the black handle had been pulled off of one end of the cables. We managed to hold the cables against all of the battery posts and appartently the cables were dead. We couldn't even get the ends to spark when they were connected to the van's battery. They left for their next great adventure when my wife called.
I then called my insurance agent to make sure we had Towing and RoadSide assistance, which we did. I called the towing company and they said that they would come out. Which they did. My wife called and said that she was going to get a ride home, which she did. Unfortunately my insurance card in my wallet has the policy number for my truck, not her car, so we had to wait while the Towing Guy called the home office to have them call my agent to get the policy number. I sat and waited in the car keeping it running until my wife got home, and then we finally managed to get to her folks house to pick up my truck to take it to the mechanic who should have it finished up by tomorrow. In short, I'm hours further behind than I was.
My wife is not trying to cause me any difficulty, in fact she's being a dear and cooking dinner while I try to gather my wit (I'm on my last one) and finish my papers. The universe, however, seems to be driving home the point that God doesn't give you any points for doing things the easy way.
These last two weeks have been very similar, with the exception that my wife (the new one) brings me food, tells me I'm doing a good job, and then stays out of my way when I'm pressed for a deadline. She's been very good about this. So what happens? Last Friday I was on my way to a class, to take the final, and smoke starts billowing out of my vents. I pull over on the interstate, thinking that something has gone horribly wrong under the hood. I check the oil and it's pretty low. I walk back about half a mile to a shell station, pay an extremely high price for two quarts of oil, and walk back. I put the oil in and the truck starts just fine, but it still bellows smoke at me. I figure out that if I turn off the fan the smoke lessens, but it still streams in the cab when I drive. Thinking that it's still under the hood, I get off the freeway and attempt to take the back roads. I end up essentially where I started from and take a longer route through downtown to get to the class. I hoped to avoid interstates but I have to take one anyway.
I got to my class about an hour late and the final had been in progess for about 20 minutes. It's an open book small groups final, but I have to take it by myself until I get caught up with my group. This actually wasn't so hard. I call my wife and let her know that the truck is smoking and I'm a bit nervous. The class is really close to my in-laws house so we decide that I'll drive the car over there (so I don't leave it in a parking lot at a school over the weekend) and she will pick me up. We go out for desert and we drive home. I get back to work on my research paper. Actually, I think I waste the evening playing Diablo 2 (Curse of the Geek Graduate). Saturday I have an all day class (yes, after the final) and drop my wife off at her folks and get lost (again) getting to class, so I'm 20 minutes late again. I get through the last day, get back to my in-laws, but my wife has been unable to do anything with the truck because there were no trusted mechanics open on Saturday. We leave the car until Sunday, which involved Church, My Fair Lady, and dinner at a Japanese restaraunt. I learn how dangerous sushi can be.
This morning I drove my wife to work, then headed to my truck, found a mechanic who can work on it tomorrow, and head home. The original plan was that I would drive the truck to the mechanics, because it's still drivable. It appears that my heating coil is dead, and the strange liquid we found on the floor of the passengers seat is possibly anti-freeze. I find that it is anti-freeze. I come home and got to work. I am supposed to pick my wife up at 2:30 so we can move the truck.
Most cars beep at you when you turn them off and remove the key if the lights are still on. My wife's car is not one of those. I left the lights on for several hours and when I left the house at 2:10, the battery was dead. My neighbors work nights or days, so they were all either home asleep or at work. I pulled out a pair of jumper cables and set upon the task of opening the hood. Some time ago my wife was in an accident and some work had to be done on the front end. This means that the only way to open the hood is to simultaneously pull the hood release in the cab and pull up on the front edge of the hood. This is a job for Mr. Fantastic. After about 15 minutes of careful prodding with a screwdriver and pulling the release a few hundred times, I got the hood open. Now to find a live battery. Our apartment complex is right behind a gas station, so I went looking for Samaritans. Three people were hanging out in front of the shop but they didn't have a car. There was a porche and a van at the pumps. The three guys who were apparently hanging out told me that the guy in the porche probably wouldn't help. I asked anyway, and he claimed that he couldn't open the hood of his car. Right. I asked the driver of the van if he could spare a few minutes and he did more than that.
He drove to the car, and his battery was one of those clearly designed to be unjumpable. The nodes were covered in thick rubber, leaving only two tiny knobs to attach the jumper cables to. I thought jumper cables would have grips on the front nose of the clamps, but the cables from my wifes car didn't have them. I also noticed that the black handle had been pulled off of one end of the cables. We managed to hold the cables against all of the battery posts and appartently the cables were dead. We couldn't even get the ends to spark when they were connected to the van's battery. They left for their next great adventure when my wife called.
I then called my insurance agent to make sure we had Towing and RoadSide assistance, which we did. I called the towing company and they said that they would come out. Which they did. My wife called and said that she was going to get a ride home, which she did. Unfortunately my insurance card in my wallet has the policy number for my truck, not her car, so we had to wait while the Towing Guy called the home office to have them call my agent to get the policy number. I sat and waited in the car keeping it running until my wife got home, and then we finally managed to get to her folks house to pick up my truck to take it to the mechanic who should have it finished up by tomorrow. In short, I'm hours further behind than I was.
My wife is not trying to cause me any difficulty, in fact she's being a dear and cooking dinner while I try to gather my wit (I'm on my last one) and finish my papers. The universe, however, seems to be driving home the point that God doesn't give you any points for doing things the easy way.
posted by Josh English @ 8:43 AM
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