Thursday was a downer, Friday was full of warm fuzzies (that I will write about later), but yesterday things blew up. Literally, my engine blew up. Or just blew. Which sucks. I was hoping it was a belt or some other non-complicated part that could be replaced to get my Montero back on the road, but in the back of my mind I knew the odds were against me. I’ve never heard a car make that kind of horrible grinding noise before. So I wasn’t surprised when the mechanic called and said, “Madame, your engine is gone. Seized. Turn it on and it goes BAP BAP BAP BAP! No good. No oil. Bone dry.”
Oh yeah. Oil. Is that something I was supposed be checking? I can’t do it all, people. Hey, if it’s not leaking and there’s no warning lights I assume all is good. Except it turns out this model car doesn’t have an oil warning light. Thanks Mitsubishi. That’s a stellar design feature. I think even my 1975 VW Bug had an oil warning light. I thought cars were supposed to get more sophisticated, not less. If the car can warm my buns with its heated leather seats, you’d think there’d be a little red light to let me know when its life blood is in danger of running out. Minor details.
Josh, God bless him, said there’s no guarantee that if he were home it wouldn’t have happened anyway, but I have more faith in him than that. He would have checked it. Thanks Sunni extremists. You owe me a car. Send the bill to Mitsubishi and ask them to split the cost with you.
So I was down to .5 cars because if you read the previous post you saw my text to Josh that not a single rear light in our “new” car was working (the one we ironically bought for Josh right before he left so he wouldn’t have to bike to work everyday in the heat). None of the brake lights and not the running lights — except those worked, but in reverse. They’re on in the daytime, but when I turn the headlights on they switch off. It took about 5 minutes with the kids yelling, “on! off! off! still off! on!” before I figured out exactly what was happening back there. The best part is the car passed inspection last week. What sort of inspection are they doing when a car with no brake lights passes?
Since I want to get the borrowed car back to my friend as soon as possible (part of the warm fuzzies story), my only option now was to get the lights fixed on the mini Rover (Land Rover Freelander) as soon as possible. So I did the grownup thing and called the mechanic back and made arrangements to drop it off this morning at his garage. It’s close enough that I would be able to walk home (a sweaty, dripping mess) which made things a little less complicated. I go out and start the car: click, click, click. WHAT?! Again: click, click, click. A dead battery. The gifts just keep on coming my way. Batteries do die overnight here, but it always seems to happen to me. I just jumped through these same hoops with the dearly departed Montero back in May. This is my third battery replacement in 18 months and Josh has been gone every time. Argggh.
I called the mechanic back and sheepishly admitted that my half-broke car was now fully broke and he offered to bring a battery to my house. I just had to open the hood and get the part number so he could bring the right sized replacement. So I spent the next 5 minutes trying to locate the hood latch. Seriously. I don’t know which flunky design school the Freelander team graduated from, but it ended up being tucked up under the dash on the passenger side. I was feeling my way all over the dash of the car — hitting all the buttons, digging under my seat, even looking on the grill of the car for a magic button to push . . . nothing. When I had finally given up I leaned over to pick up my bag off the floor on the passenger side and there it was, right in my face.
I finally got the hood opened, figured out which size battery the car takes (some little numbers and letters written on the side) and called George (my mechanic) back. He came out with a guy, installed the new battery and then whisked my car away, promising to work on it today and have it back to me sometime tomorrow. Inshallah. I should probably just stay home until Josh is back in the country since everything I touch seems to fall apart.
On a unrelated note — the boys went back to school today. One last year with them in High School, Middle School and Elementary School. Summer was way too short, but if that’s what it takes for Josh to get home, then let’s hurry up!