Cars

Day #16 of 31 Days of Storytelling

No, we are not talking about the movie Cars.

Just for real cars.

"Legit" my daughter would say.

She says that too much and not always in the right context.

I drive a Ford Freestyle. It is not the van but a "crossover" vehicle that they no longer make.

I grew up driving Fords.

My grandfather worked in a Ford factory for over 20 years and we got a discount.

This is the steering part that my grandfather made for Ford.
They gave it to him for retirement. It is heavy!

I made it a candle holder. I truly adore it.

But we have had a lot of problems with this Ford.

I will get to that in a minute.

I was in the big vehicle of a friend's a few weeks ago when she just drove over a grassy median in the parking lot of a restaurant. 

The car was so big she didn't see it.

I did.

So did our girlfriend in her car behind us.

She gave us a thumbs up

Still laughing!

out her window to ensure we knew just how much she saw of the Monster Truck Show.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration.

When my girlfriend dropped me off in the parking lot where my car was,

(Joann's, of course), 

I realized I had 10 minutes to make a 15 minute drive to pick my daughter up from school.

Yikes!

In my panic, I decided to see how many parking lots were connected along the very busy street, thus saving time.

I was surprised how many parking lots led to other parking lots allowing me a faster, no-pesky-traffic-lights-or-speed-limits drive.

I was giddy with the thrill of somehow "beating" the system and going too fast when my parking lots ended at a gas station. 

I had to enter a "legit" road again.

I thought the gas station parking lot I was exiting was the proper exit.

It wasn't. 

It had a narrow exit and the rest was curbed.

I figured that out in the long moment in the 

air when time seemed to stand still.

It was a Duke Boys moment.

But instead of a Bo or Luke Duke "Yee-haw!" when I hit the road,

I said, "Doh!" like Homer Simpson.

And slammed my knee against the bottom of the dashboard.

(I didn't realize the knee thing until I saw the ugly bruise in the shower the next morning. 

I actually thought to myself:  What did I do? Then it all came back to me.)

I prayed that no part of the car was still on the road when I looked in the rear view mirror.

It wasn't.

Or leaking fluid.

It wasn't.

I was just a few minutes late picking up my daughter.

I considered it a victory that I was still in a vehicle that was like, "legit", running.

I know, I am bugging myself, I will stop.

I told my husband there was a story with the car and asked if he wanted to hear it.

He didn't.

So I didn't tell him.

We helped with a Harvest Fest at church on Saturday.

While we were setting up, Monte asked me what was hanging off the underneath of my car.

Oopie!

I don't know.

It's running fine.

It's no big deal.

It may or may not have anything to do 
with my Duke Boys moment…

So Monte grabbed a hunk of wood from the unlit bonfire 

I just have to pause here

for effect

and started whacking the hangy-down thing with the hunk of wood.

The hangy-down thing would have none of it 

and didn't budge.

No one asked why Monte was beating the car with a stick.

On the way home from the Harvest Fest the wrench light came on in the car.

We both looked at each other in blame.

With good reason.

We found out this morning that the car needs a new million dollar transmission.

And it isn't that old.

But I don't consider a car old until it has over 100,000 miles on it.

This only has 68,000 and it is only 6 or 7 years old.

Practically brand new.

But not by "trade-in" standards.

So Monte weighed the trade-in value versus the price tag to fix the car and said,

"No thank you."

I didn't even know that was an option.

So the rest of the day has been back and forth on what kind of car I want 

(shrug) 

and how much we should pay for it.

(I shop at Dollar Tree)

The good news?

They fixed the hangy-down thing.