Car Drama Round Two

If you read yesterday's blog, you know that my day started a little rough.

It got worse.

If you didn't read it yet, this blog will make much more sense if you read this first.

Anyway, here is the long-anticipated (at least in my mind!) Round Two of the Car Drama:

After calling the AAA guy TWICE, I let the car run for 20 minutes, planning to let it charge up a little then go to the store and get a new battery.

It is interesting to note that the AAA guy said “Ma’am, you know you need to leave the garage door open, right?  You can’t just leave it running in there.”

And I couldn’t even get upset that he clearly thought I was a moron because, after the whole car key conundrum, I felt like a moron.

Anyway, I eventually backed out sloooowwwwlllly, then stopped because I had to put the garage door down. 

Unfortunately, we only have 1 automatic door on our garage, the other one has to be shut and locked from inside the garage. So, not thinking, I turned the car off, ran in, shut the garage door and ran back out.

At which point the car wouldn’t start.

The amount of cursing that accompanied this is really too horrifying to share.

Luckily there was a guy in the neighborhood who quickly offered to jump the car--thus saving me from a THIRD call to AAA, or my head might have popped right off.

He jumped the car, I drove to Walmart. However, ever the foresightful little bunny, I pulled into the auto repair lot and--instead of turning the car off again--got out my phone to call the auto department so I could pull right into an empty stall.

Which is when my stupid phone--in spite of its alleged 30% battery--went dead in my hands.

I then spent two or three satisfying minutes comparing my phone to excrement.  Which, thanks to my fabulous career in online moderating, I can actually do in 4 languages.

I shut off the car, went into the auto department, told them what was happening and they got out their big blue auto book only to find that they don't stock the battery for a 2005 Miata.

“You have to be kidding,” I said.

“I wish I was,” the clerk said sympathetically.

“Not as much as I do.”  I replied.  “Can you order it in?”

“No,” the clerk said. “We don’t carry it at all.”

And then I just stood there and stared at him in shock, utterly speechless.  I mean, I try to avoid WalMart as much as possible because I kind of buy into the hype that they are evil corporate giants who squeeze out little mom n pop operations by carrying everything under the sun.

Except, apparently, a battery for a 2005 Miata.

The clerk then suggested I go to O'Reilly's.  I suggested that this was going to be challenging as I was pretty sure the car wasn't going to start again.

And I was right. I got it, tried it, and it didn’t start.

They hurried out with some little hand-held jump machine, got me started and I drove to O'Reilly's.

At which point I learned that O'Reilly's stocks the battery but the local store was out.

That’s when I knew that one of two things was happening:

A.   A government conspiracy was in the works.

OR

B.   Opie had been in cahoots with all the local retailers, somehow pressuring them into not selling me a battery, because he hates my car.

Either way, I was once again speechless.  And I think I kind of creeped out the clerk because I didn’t say a word, I just  kept staring at him with this slightly hostile, shocked expression.

“We have one at our Glenpool store,” he said after an uncomfortable pause.

“Where,” I asked, “is the O'Reilly's in Glenpool?”

And then they gave me a bunch of directions that included words like "West" and "North" and other nonsense and—after some more slightly hostile staring—we all decided that it made more sense to leave the car at O'Reilly's, walk the mile and a half home, let them get the battery sent over from the Glenpool store and call me when they had the battery installed.

So, I waked home assuming, based on how my day had been going, that O'Reilly's would put the battery in completely wrong, the car would explode, and an entire city block would be leveled.

In any case, they were supposed to call around 12:30. At 2:00 I called them and then started walking the mile and a half back.  Then, when I got in the shop, the clerk who had been helping me was gone and there was only one woman who knew what was going on with the car.

“She’s eating lunch,” the other clerk told me.

I wanted to tell the guy if he thought that I was doing another 3 mile round trip hike because they couldn’t get their act together, he was out of his tiny little mind.  However, since the hostile staring had been so effective earlier, I just went with that again.

“I’ll go get her,” he finally decided.  “She’s just in the back parking lot at our customer appreciation picnic.”

The irony of that was nearly overwhelming.

So, the female clerk came in, hotdog still in hand, and got all snippy with me, complaining under her breath etc.

This was an unwise choice.

“Honey,” I said with deceptive calm and what I assume was a creepy smile. “I used up the last of my ‘nice’ around 1:00 today. You should probably rethink your tone.”

The other clerk laughed and the woman opened her mouth, took another look at my face, and muttered “Sorry.”

Which was the only real victory of the whole day.

In any case, a mere SEVEN HOURS after my original attempt to leave the house, I had the first errand of the day done.

And, almost worth it because, no matter what Opie says, I still love this car!

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation Might Be Evil

Ok, let's just get the hard part out of the way right up front:

Opie was right.

 ­

And, yes, that's painful to say. Not because Opie is never right--he's frequently right. He's a smart guy and he makes good decisions (like marrying me!). However, when I have to specifically acknowledge that he was right about something, that usually means that I was wrong about something.

And I really, really hate to be wrong...almost as much as I hate to admit I was wrong.

Here's what happened:

As you may know, I'm a liberal.  Opie is not a liberal. He says that he's basically a Libertarian but the truth of the matter is that I’m pretty sure he's a government hating anarchist.

I base this on the fact that any time a political discussion comes up, he spends a long time ranting about government should keep out of peoples’ business and how politicians are thieves and idiots and all out to screw somebody else.

This is bad enough when it comes to health care, smoking bans, and seat belt laws—all of which are clear examples of nefarious government forces exerting their vicious control over the populace—but don’t even get him started on the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and the numerous toll roads across our fair state. 

Opie maintains of these toll roads are a total scam designed to screw the common man out of his money and line the pockets of politicians.

I, on the other hand, have always been a fan of toll roads, maintaining that the people who use the roads are the ones who pay for them and that's a great and fair thing.

And then I plug my ears as Opie screams things like, “Thieves! The government is full of thieves! Those toll roads were supposed to be paid for in  few years but they're STILL CHARGING TOLLS. Why? To improve all the roads in Oklahoma and have they? NO! All that’s happened is a bunch of rich people got richer and the roads stayed crappy because the government is full of THIEVES!”

I’m not going to lie, it’s a little frightening

But after last Thursday, I might be a bit more on his side.

I was using a toll road as I was driving to my night class in a small town north of Tulsa and as I pulled off I hit a pothole that was roughly the size of the Grand Canyon.

I would like to point out two things before continuing: One, my tires are almost brand-new; we got four new tires for my car less than a year ago.

Two, I was not going excessively fast because I never go excessively fast. I hate to drive and thus I tend to drive like a 90-year-old woman on Valium. I firmly maintain that 70 mph is the speed limit, the limit you understand, you certainly don't have to drive that fast.

And yet, that pothole flattened not ONE but TWO of my tires.

And of course I only had one spare

Which, to be fair, didn't really matter that much as I am almost as likely to disarm a nuclear weapon as I am to change my own tire.

Needless to say, I called Opie and dropped the problem hysterically yet squarely in his lap.

We called AAA,  they came to tow the car; however, because it's a small town in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and it was after six, the local tire shop had already closed for the night.  So, we had it towed there but we had to leave it overnight and Opie had to drive out to get me.

When we went back to retrieve it the next day we realized that not only did I have two flat tires but one rim was damaged beyond repair and we had to order a new one in from California. Therefore, the shop could only put one new tire on it and we had to use the spare while waiting for the rim to come in.

The screaming and cursing that accompanied this revelation is far too horrifying to relate.

Now, you may be telling yourselves this is was really some bad luck but not proof that Opie is right about the pernicious devils in Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

But the thing is, I'm not done with my story.

We still had to get the car home. Which means that one of us had to drive 50 miles on the tiny and wobbly donut spare tire.

And I'm a strong powerful woman of the modern age (even if I can’t change my own tire) so I offered to do it.

“Give me the keys,” Opie said firmly.

So, once again, I was denied my God-given rights by a male-dominated misogynist society! I feel so oppressed.

In any case, Opie drove home on the horrible donut wheel, traveling on the highway at about 45 miles per hour, getting honked and screamed at and being the recipient of many obscene gestures.

And then when he was about 5 miles from home, he also hit a pothole on the Oklahoma toll road and got ANOTHER flat tire and damaged ANOTHER rim beyond repair.

So the long and short of it is that I am now convinced Opie was right. Because there is no way the Oklahoma Department of Transportation is spending all that toll road money on road maintenance.  The roads are obviously not fit for human transportation.

While I probably (hopefully) won’t start screaming about miscreants and thieves, if I hit another pothole I don’t know if I’ll be able to maintain my somewhat tenuous grip on sanity.