Americanuck

Cars scare me. Better put cars breaking down scare me. I go into complete and total panic mode when I hear, smell or see anything wrong. Heaven forbid the car actually stops working, I melt down. Seriously melt down.

When my old car roadrunner’s (Geo Metro.. yeah I know, shut up!) battery died I was doing the single Mom thing and I was heading out to get food. When the key turned and the engine didn’t turn over I sat there for a second in complete denial and then popped the hood and stood in the complete downpour staring at the engine compartment like I knew the hell what I was doing. Why does it always pour rain at times like these? I decided to knock at my Landlords door, I figured hey the husband was a guy maybe he will know more than me, I was holding the panic in until he came to the door and saw me standing there soaked to the skin and I’m sure with a tragic expression on my face.

He asked me what was wrong and I started blubbering, squeaking incoherently and pointing with great sweeping motions towards my car. He managed to ascertain that I was having some sort of mechanical issue and ran out in the rain with me to look.

I finally managed to breathe enough to say I think it had something to do with the battery and he said yeah.Duh. He ran back into the house and brought his truck around and gave my car a jump. He gave me his cell number, said if my car died again on the other end to give him a call and he would come and start my car again. Man! Talk about a sweetie. This was the same guy who I though was the grumpiest person in the world the first time I met him, I hadn’t long since moved in when this happened.

Turns out he used to be a mechanic by trade and he offered to pick me up an new battery and install it for me, no charge on the install. He also asked me what kind of retard in this day and age had a battery in their car that wasn’t maintenance free? Yeah, that was how he spoke, bless him. I told him my ex had bought it for me when my first battery died. He made a dismissive noise and dropped it. From that day on I loved that man and from that day on he teased me about my hysterical fit over a battery.

So today I drove home from the train station in Freddy, my awesome 3 yearish old car and parked it briefly between Tom’s and my spot (he wasn’t home) to run up and get Sean and the crap he wanted to take over to his Father’s and ran back downstairs to the garage only to see a small liquid trail under my car poking out from behind. I stuck my finger it the liquid and squished it between two fingers and sniffed. It smelled like garage floor (eww) and water.

I quashed the panic, telling myself that perhaps Tom had washed his car today and it was leftover water that hadn’t dried yet and drove Sean over. I stopped briefly for some groceries and kept saying to myself “don’t worry there will be nothing under your car”. When I pulled out there was a small puddle. EEP!

So I drive home again park and run upstairs to put the cold stuff away and grab Tom’s big flashlight. I go back down and crouch down and look under the car and there is liquid DRIPPING from something near the front wheels. So of course I panic. This would be a BAD time for this to happen as I was to be taking my Mom to the airport on Sunday. I ran upstairs and call my Mother to tell her and to see if she can rally someone as a back up in case something was really wrong to drive her there. Clearly this was a mistake as my already emotionally unstable Mother burst into tears and started saying how she hates to depend on people, how hard it is blah blah. I’m saying OK! I hear you but my CAR IS BROKEN!!!! PANIC!!! PANIC!!

Now normally I’m a very stable person but I like to be in control, of everything. I mean I like it A LOT. Generally when things go wrong I’m the person with the cool head. Seriously. But not with cars. Whatever calm, collected, organized, problem solving goddess I am in pretty much every other part of my life is completely fucked up by cars.

It was too late to call the garage so I called up the internets instead. Thank goodness for the internets. They told me to put a piece of white cardboard under the car to get a good look at what was dripping. Was it oily? Was it coloured? Was it water? Oh yes? Water is it? Well then it is condensation on the FUCKING AIR CONDITIONER (pardon my french, I’m still suffering from the effects). All that for condensation?!!! Colour me embarrassed. Oh and dirty cos of all that crawling around on the garage floor (did I say ew?)

It’s party dry by this point….trust me it was a lot drippier!

In my defence this is the first car that I’ve had for longer than five minutes with an air conditioner so I didn’t know they did that.

Me recreating my panic face in the garage for illustrative purposes

I called my Mother back and said all was well, no need to rally the troops. When Tom called me I babbled on to him about my experience and he said to me “Well, you could have driven me into work and dropped me off and then taken her to the airport yanno, you aren’t alone anymore remember? We have two cars!” (awww my hero!)
In my defence, did I mention cars scare me? Rational thoughts? About cars? Moi?

On a lighter note at least for me cos I didn’t need to clean it up (Sorry Honey!) Sean captured Cinny doing another one of her butt scootin’ boogies across the floor in between pre-sorted laundry to attempt to knock off a stuck butt nugget. I only wish he had managed to capture her from the side. It is seriously one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen when she does this cos she looks so freaked out, juts her head forward and throws her legs up in the air and paddles forward with her front paws.

Hee hee