keep your fingers crossed

Yes, I’m still in Charleston, due to hit the road in the morning. I’m sitting here trying to figure out why I thought last night that I was leaving today…. oh, because I just took the car in again this morning! It has been a loooooooooong day. It seems like I did that a week ago. But no, I got over there at a little after 8 this morning, and drove it around Mt. Pleasant first just to see what it would do. It ran really badly. Well, it’s not running badly as much as it’s acting bizarre. Oh, I don’t know WHAT the hell it’s doing. I made this long list of problems and took it to the car guys. The idle was weird, it was lurching around when I’d switch gears, it was slinging me around — sometimes. Then it would be perfectly fine. But it was driving really badly this morning so I arrived at the shop convinced they would immediately see something was really wrong.

Well, of course not. The owner drove it around, and it was perfectly fine. The idle was off so they took apart the idle board – whatever that is – and cleaned it. And they fixed the speedometer. And I sat there for two hours while they worked on it. They put it on their computer to see what was going on with the indicator light. Apparently the light is malfunctioning and they gave me a code to give to the Honda place so they can fix it. But it’s not a problem – just a malfunction! This light came on when I lost my gas cap and I finally had to get the Honda place to turn it off, so I’m sure it is a malfunction.

So they checked it up and down. And I decided in the meanwhile that I’d better stay here another day. I wanted to drive it some more before starting off on a five-hour trip. I had to check out of the motel at 12 and they weren’t done with the car till 10:30. Since I want to avoid Rush Hour Hell in Charlotte, and it starts at 3ish and ends at 7ish now (Charlotte is turning into Atlanta, just like it always wanted!) I have to either leave before 1 or after 4. Before one wasn’t giving me enough time to drive around. After four would get me home past dark, and I really don’t want to be on the road in an iffy car after dark.  So, another night it is. Of course, that’s also another day to bum around town, and I’m all for that!

So I drive around. I drive towards Folly Beach but the traffic was horrible so I came back to town. The car is fine at first. Then the car starts acting weird again. I walked around town awhile then I drove it out to Mt. Pleasant and back to Sullivan’s Island and it would be okay then it would be weird. Then it would be okay. Then it would be weird. Actually, I’ve driven around so much I forget what was happening when but I ended up finally going back to the car place and saying, "I KNOW you’re sick of seeing me— but it’s still not running right!!!!"

So my new best friend Bill sends his guy out in it yet again. His guy looks just like Leo Johnson in Twin Peaks, the drug-selling, wife-beating, cocaine-snorting murderer. I imagine his guy saying, "Bill isn’t here, Beth…. but IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN HELP YOU WITH????" before trying to shoot me. (Okay, okay, this is only even remotely funny if you’ve seen Twin Peaks. It’s late, I’ve had several looooong days, I’m tired.)

 Leo Johnson’s Twin takes off in my car, stays gone for ages, comes back and says…. it seems fine to him. He gives me a long discussion about shifting and RPMs and how you can’t let the RPMs get too low before you shift or it’s going to lurch around. Duuude, I’ve been driving a manual since I was in college, I know how they work. But whatever!! Leo Johnson’s Twin thinks it’s fine and Bill thinks it’s fine and maybe it’s just doing this because the engine they put in had some condensation in it that has to work itself out. He really doesn’t like working with used engines, he says! Well, GREAT!!! This used engine actually is under warranty by State Farm for a year since they approved it, so if there is something wrong with it they HAVE to fix it—- but I have to get home tomorrow!!!! And it’s a five hour drive!!!

Bill gives me a couple of numbers to call in the VERY unlikely event (he says) that I should find myself needing roadside assistance. He and Leo Johnson’s Twin both reassure me again that they think it will be fine. So off I drive, wondering how on earth Leo Johnson’s Twin could possibly think the way it was lurching around was normal… and of course it’s driving like a dream. It’s just fine. No problems at all. Leo Johnson’s Twin and Bill probably think I’m either completely insane or I’ve never driven a manual until yesterday.

AAAAGGGGGHHHH. Well I drive around and it’s fine for awhile and then it gets its little jerky lurchy fits for awhile and then it’s fine for awhile again. It was awful driving into town tonight; it was perfectly fine driving back to the motel. So, I’m going for it. I don’t know what else to do. I HAVE to get home. I can get the Honda place to check it all out and see what they think when I get there. And really, it IS more of an annoyance than a danger. I hope. It’s fine on the highway. I’ve actually driven it about 100 miles since I picked it up, so surely if it was going to break down it would have.

I hope.

I think perhaps this is all a lesson in handling problems. I HATE confrontations, and I especially hate having to do things like I’ve been doing over and over and over these last few days – – things like taking a car back to a shop ten zillion times because it’s still not fixed. And I have to say that Bill and the rest of the gang at the car place are very very nice and they aren’t the least bit condescending despite the fact that I probably seem totally nuts to them, and I really don’t think for a second they’d send me off on a five hour drive in an unsafe car. But I’m actually at the point where I don’t even think twice – I just zip on over and tell Bill my latest problem. This is probably very good for me. I have to admit I’m feeling all capable and grown-up, having to handle all this myself. Not that Baker B is good at stuff like this either – I just feel better with two of us looking like incompetent mechanical idiots than doing it by myself. But I also hate feeling like I can’t take care of things myself- – and look! I have! Well, I hope I have. We’ll see if I make it home tomorrow, or if Baker B has to rent a car and come get me somewhere in the wilds between Columbia and Charlotte.

And on a putting things in perspective note, there was a terrible fire outside Charleston last night – it’s been all over the news, probably everywhere – nine firefighters were killed. It’s the most firefighters killed at one time since 911. It was a sofa store and I don’t think they know yet why it caught fire. But I was walking on the beach at Sullivan’s Island at 8:30 or so last night, down at the north end of the beach where you can see Charleston across the water. And there was this weird cloud hanging over the city. It looked like something was on fire – and that’s what it was. The sofa store.

  <img alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1229/573520007_0798c14557.jpg?v=0&#8243; />

  This is not a great picture, but you can see the long trail of smoke.

More later. I MUST go to bed now. I’m planning an early start tomorrow.