I thought I had Monday off, but I got an early morning call to come in and cover someone who had called in sick. Unexpected work is my favorite reason to be pulled out of a dead sleep at 7 am.
I gathered my things, jumped in car, and after a stop for coffee, decided to get some gas for the drive across town and back. As I was pulling out of the station, my car died. No smoke, no clunk, nothing – it just shut off.
After swearing and trying unsuccessfully to restart it, I called a tow truck. Luckily I broke down a few blocks from the mechanic where I normally take my car, so I figured I could get a tow fairly quickly, get a rental and get to work. I then sat and sat while said tow truck failed to show up.
At some point when dust started to settle on me, I called my boss and suggested that since I was going to be a while he might be better off to call someone else who would be able to show up before lunch.
Right after that, the tow truck showed up and hauled my car to the mechanic.
Although I’d reserved a rental car at a company with an office near the garage, I didn’t bother to pick it up as I thought I wasn’t working, and figured I could cancel it from the land line once I got home and had some breakfast.
I started walking the mile (or so) home and when I was about halfway there, my boss called and told me the other day player who they’d called had also broken down on the way to work and couldn’t make it in at all, so I had to do an about-face and march to the rental place to get the car – and still no breakfast.
After getting stuck in line behind the tourists with endless questions, I grabbed the keys to my econo-sedan, got on my way and showed up at work about two hours before lunch.
Luckily everyone seemed to think the entire episode was hilarious. Except me, of course. At least the car didn’t die late-night in the parking lot of some godforsaken cell-service free movie ranch at 2 am.
The car needed a new fuel pump so between that and the rental I worked for free Monday.
I turned the rental back in this morning – it was kind of fun to turn corners at speed, although I’m used to an SUV so sitting down that close to the road kind of freaked me out.
What I want now is one of those nifty GPS units. I had fun programming in a destination, driving off of the planned route and listening to it freak out (”please return to the highlighted route” pause “please return to the highlighted route” long pause “recalculating”).
It takes so little to amuse me these days.
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November 20, 2008 at 11:18 am
For even more fun, you should put the GPS unit into a different language. My boss did it with his and his 4 year old thinks it’s hilarious.
“Recalculando…” pause “Recalculando…”
Peggy sez: Ooooooo…. I’m totally going to do that next time I rent a car!
November 20, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Well, not entirely for free. You boosted your reputation as someone who comes in in a pinch, and with a funny story to boot, so that’s always good.
I had to show one of the executives how to use his new GPS today. I have a small one for hiking, but I rather enjoyed freaking his out by not taking freeways…
Peggy sez: Thanks! I did notice that the GPS kept telling me to do things that weren’t possible – like turning left on a divided road. Fun to play with!
November 21, 2008 at 10:06 pm
SUV?!
How Republican.
If you want a station wagon, get one. I have a diesel Jetta that gets 37 mpg in town. And I don’t pretend to be a ’sport’.
Peggy sez: Republican, my ass. It’s paid off and it’s cheap to insure. My standard reply to demands that I purchase a new vehicle are for the person requesting said new vehicle to cough up the funds.
So let me know when you’re going to paypal me that twenty grand, there, sport :)
November 22, 2008 at 2:40 am
Peggy – how do you edit comments? I know I’ve done it before, but for the life of me, since they changed the dashboard, I can’t for the life of me flippin’ work out how to do it.*tears hair out*
Ref SatNavs – I use a good old fashioned map book that cost me a whole £0.99p. (about $3) I drove myself and two friends somewhere we’d never been to once, and they (apparently not trusting my map-reading abilities) brought their Tom-Tom along. It was programmed to make a submarine alarm noise near known speed cameras. They hadn’t warned me about this, so I nearly crashed the car the first time it went off. :o)
Peggy sez: On the comments page, you click on the commenter’s name and the edit screen opens up. Type away and then save. I had to send a help query to WordPress about this after they changed the dashboard.
I have the map book, too – in LA it’s called a Thomas Guide and it costs about $30, but it’s well worth it – and it doesn’t shout at me when I go off route:)
November 22, 2008 at 8:47 am
Two random comments:
Re: Call board, I used to work for Local 33 in Hollywood back in 1967. We had to Phone In every day at 4:30, to see if there was any work. Of course it was always busy so I bought a phone that Automatically Dialed the Number!! You had to punch out the chads in a plastic card and push it into the phone. It dialed the number as the card slowly popped up.
Re: SUV, I have a 1995 Subaru that gets 24mpg, I guess it’s considered an SUV. I live in Idaho. My other car got stuck in the snow in my driveway last winter, not the Subaru. I had to tow 5 cars that got stuck on my little street.
I don’t get why people think owning one is anathema.
Pope out.
November 22, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Thank you! That comments thing was driving me mad. :) (I’m glad it wasn’t “obvious” though.)
We’ve had incidents in the UK of people driving into rivers etc because satnav hasn’t been bright enough to know that vehicles can’t ‘walk on water’. LOL. The council near me had to put up a roadsign about it because the sat navs were sending people to a bridge that hadn’t existed since the 1st world war…! :)
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/09/25/a-sat-nav-sign-of-the-times/