July 28, 2019
When it rains, it pours. And hails.
The Monday before a trip planned to begin the following Sunday, I
took my car in for its state inspection. On the drive there, the
check engine light came on, showing transmission fluid overheating.
They could reset it, they said, but the inspection requires data so
they couldn’t perform it until I’d driven fifty miles.
During the fifty miles, the check engine light came on again. It went
off after the car had sat in the garage overnight and didn’t come
on when I started it again. I called but the next service appointment
wasn’t until the following week, when we planned to be in another
state and our inspection would be expired. They suggested I leave it
all day Friday, which I did. They inspected it and passed it, and
fixed some wiring leading to the transmission temperature sensor.
They didn’t charge for the wiring.
Good thing, since the light came on again on my drive home. I called
and was assured it was safe to drive on a trip and they’d try again
on my return.
Sunday, the house was awfully warm. The house’s air conditioning
wasn’t cooling. This prompted us to leave early, breaking the very
long day’s drive into a half a day Sunday afternoon and a regular
day Monday.
As we backed out of the driveway, we saw that bees were swarming
their favorite spot, which had required an exterminator the year
before. No time for that now.
We were nearly an hour away from home, the check engine light on,
when the warning chime for a dangerous condition sounded and the
panel showed us with no data from the sensor. Then a dial showed, the
temperature at the middle. Jump to the maximum. Disappear, no data.
Middle again. Maximum. The whole time the chime was sounding about
every 60 seconds. We could not make a trip like this.
So we drove home—the house was really warm now—and put our
luggage into the other car, which is fifteen years old and needs a
muffler. We backed out a second time, noting there were at least ten
bees gnawing their way under our siding. The person who’d be
picking up our mail wasn’t going to like that.
Nearly two and a half hours after we’d initially left, we were on
the road again. We wouldn’t reach our hotel before dinner, so where
should we stop? We discussed revisiting a restaurant we’d enjoyed
well enough for lunches in past trips.
When we arrived, it had gone out of business. There were two other
restaurants near the exit. One had an hour wait, the other a half
hour. We didn’t want to lose that much time.
We drove past the major city and its immediate suburbs and saw a
chain restaurant that didn’t have a full parking lot. Good
enough—barely.
Over dinner, we checked our email and had a message left at 7:46 pm.
on our landline back home from Home Depot in Watertown,
Massachusetts. We don’t live there, but our daughter isn’t far. I
texted her; she’d been waiting all day for them to email and text
her at her own number that her order was ready for pick up. No, she
hadn’t given the landline number at a place she hasn’t lived for
a dozen years. Her last name isn’t the same as ours since her
marriage. How they’d gotten that number and why they ignored the
one she gave remains a mystery—but there was no mystery that the
store was closed for the day.
Our hotel check-in went smoothly enough, but there was a wait for the
elevator, because one wasn’t working. I’m in the hotel now,
mulling over our day.
A, the air conditioning broke
B, the bees are swarming our front door
C, the car was undriveable despite being in for service twice that
week
D, our dinner choice was impossible, and so were back-ups in the
vicinity
E, the elevator was out
F, Home Depot fucked up on who and how to notify an order was ready
I can’t wait for G.
