redkanga

Well, it is now Wednesday and I now have the clarity of thought to talk about what happened with my car, which happens to be a 1995 Chevy Astro with over 110k miles.

I got the car back on Saturday morning. It ran great! I was stoked to get it back so fast. I moved all my stuff from the little brown truck that work lent me to my car, in preparation for taking the little truck back. I ran out of time on the weekend and figured I could get the truck back to work on Monday evening. It’s a good thing that I ran out of time.

Monday afternoon, I was getting ready to leave the job site that I was working at in Fontucky. I opened the door to the car. Without getting in I put the key in the ignition and turned it. rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr. The car was turning over, but refusing to start. I try again. rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr. Hmm, same thing! I was thinking, ‘Damn!!!! I just got this back from the shop.’ Thinking that I had somehow managed to drain the battery, I start looking around for jumper cables. I couldn’t find any. Nobody at the job site had them. I called Katie, she was sympathetic, but I knew that it would be hours before she could come out and get me. I look around under the dash, check a couple fuses and notice that I had knocked loose a couple of wire for the ‘factory installed’ ignition kill-switch. I fiddle with that for a while with no change in my test results.

I try getting a hold of Ron, but he is out of the office and hasn’t gotten home. I try my mechanic, Owen, but he can’t really tell me anything except it’s either no spark or no gas. Pretty much what I had figured. He couldn’t tell me how to bypass the kill switch, so I was pretty much stuck. I finally got a hold of Ron, asked him how he had fixed the kill switch the last time something happened, but he didn’t remember. Stuck again.

It was about 2:45 p.m. I decided to call AAA and get a tow truck out to jump start my car. AAA quoted me a 60 - 90 minute wait and gave me a couple of local shops, since I was about 65 miles from home. I call the shops and they both say that they will take my car but that they don’t know when they could get to it. Ok, so I have to towed to somewhere in Fontana and they keep my car until it is fixed and then I have to get out there during the day to pick it up. Bad.

I talk to Katie and Ron again and we decided that if I can’t get the car started they will come pick me up and we will trailer the car back to Long Beach. Ron suggests that I go someplace and get a cold beer. I decided to stick it out for the tow truck. I wait, then I wait some more. After 1 hour and 45 minutes, I call AAA and asked where the the tow truck is. They politely tell me that they will back off the service call from my account and they call the tow company. The tow company said that they were swamped and that it would be another 30 minutes. 45 minutes later, I’m pretty much delirious from the heat and the sun… I forget to call AAA to ask them where the #$@%!!!! tow truck is. At around 6:30 p.m. the tow truck shows up. The driver is convinced that my fuel pump is gone. He says that a jump won’t do it. I say screw it and ask him to take me to a bar.

He drops me off at a local place. I walk to the front… and it’s closed. I walk two blocks down the street and stagger into a Denny’s. There I sat until 9:00 p.m. when Katie and Ron got there to pick me up.

I just called Owen and asked him if he had a chance to look at my car. He said that it’s got no spark. He bypassed the “$5 cheapo alarm” and it still has no spark. He told me that he’ll know more tomorrow after he starts taking the wretched beast apart.

I’m just glad that I’ve still got that little brown truck to drive.