sae
03-31-2015, 12:48 AM
So sae, how did you spend your Sunday evening? Walking home in a cloud of yellow death... I mean pollen.
It started innocently enough. Kid was "sooooo borrreeddd". I drop her off at a friend'S house a little ways out of town and head back. About a mile or so my big sexy beast of a van starts to sputter. Let me paint a picture for you: As a hobby/money making scheme I buy broken vehicles, fix them over time and re-sell them pretty much at cost. This time I am sporting a '93 chevy g20 van, a retiree of the local school district maintenance department. Runs pretty great these days save the little issue of having no heater core still. Back on track.
It sputters, it stutters, it's running a clean 15 mph tops. Having just replaced the fuel filter and hearing the fuel pump running just fine I am stumped. I decided to save myself some trouble and I have it towed to a local mechanic shop for diagnosis. Tow truck shows up, I lie and say I have a ride, and walk home. (I am not about to get in a vehicle with a stranger at the wheel).
I make it home, looking like warm death. My previously sunburned face is still blistered and weeping a bit, my eyes are swollen shut and I am sporting a wet tissue everywhere I go. It would have been a tough walk for some, for someone with a douchebag heart it was both envigoratING and tormenting. I wash the yellow death off of me, wait for the kid to make it back home and snot-cement myself to a pillow in a diphenhydramine induced coma. I wake this morning to a call from the mechanic.
The initial diagnosis? I am told the head gaskets are blowN and I am going to need aN engine overhaul. I knew for certain that was bullshit. Now I am in no way any sort of feminist, but I strongly dislike being taken for a fool. This, however is a common peril for a woman in this region of the US I suppose. I decide to just walk to the mechanic'S shop, pay the time spent on the "diagnosis" and leave. Oh, but there was one problem....
I often refer to my anxiety as the "what if" disease. What if the mechanic refuses to give me my keys back, what if there is a confrontation, what if it really was a head gasket issue? In comes the bf, the knight in shining pick up truck. He has the mechanical skills of a wet cat but he can sure talk a good game. He let me hang out in his truck while he did what he did best.
Alost aN hour later he returns all smiles. Apparently he spoke to the lead mechanic, voiced his disbelief over the head gaskets being blown. Lead mechanic checks up and discovers the issue wasn't as diagnosed but instead a blown hose that feeds gas to the fuel pump. I pick up my van this evening, charged only for the initial diagnostic, and I am issued an apology for the "misunderstanding". Meh, I wasn't going to fight it.
I hope one of these days I will have the strength to stand up like this. I recognize I am an easy target to some. It's the standing up part I have trouble with. I am so afraid of altercation that sometimes it cripples my ability to reconcile differences with others. One of these days I will look back on this incident and laugh at my cowardice, but for now I am just glad I have such an epic partner in crime.
It started innocently enough. Kid was "sooooo borrreeddd". I drop her off at a friend'S house a little ways out of town and head back. About a mile or so my big sexy beast of a van starts to sputter. Let me paint a picture for you: As a hobby/money making scheme I buy broken vehicles, fix them over time and re-sell them pretty much at cost. This time I am sporting a '93 chevy g20 van, a retiree of the local school district maintenance department. Runs pretty great these days save the little issue of having no heater core still. Back on track.
It sputters, it stutters, it's running a clean 15 mph tops. Having just replaced the fuel filter and hearing the fuel pump running just fine I am stumped. I decided to save myself some trouble and I have it towed to a local mechanic shop for diagnosis. Tow truck shows up, I lie and say I have a ride, and walk home. (I am not about to get in a vehicle with a stranger at the wheel).
I make it home, looking like warm death. My previously sunburned face is still blistered and weeping a bit, my eyes are swollen shut and I am sporting a wet tissue everywhere I go. It would have been a tough walk for some, for someone with a douchebag heart it was both envigoratING and tormenting. I wash the yellow death off of me, wait for the kid to make it back home and snot-cement myself to a pillow in a diphenhydramine induced coma. I wake this morning to a call from the mechanic.
The initial diagnosis? I am told the head gaskets are blowN and I am going to need aN engine overhaul. I knew for certain that was bullshit. Now I am in no way any sort of feminist, but I strongly dislike being taken for a fool. This, however is a common peril for a woman in this region of the US I suppose. I decide to just walk to the mechanic'S shop, pay the time spent on the "diagnosis" and leave. Oh, but there was one problem....
I often refer to my anxiety as the "what if" disease. What if the mechanic refuses to give me my keys back, what if there is a confrontation, what if it really was a head gasket issue? In comes the bf, the knight in shining pick up truck. He has the mechanical skills of a wet cat but he can sure talk a good game. He let me hang out in his truck while he did what he did best.
Alost aN hour later he returns all smiles. Apparently he spoke to the lead mechanic, voiced his disbelief over the head gaskets being blown. Lead mechanic checks up and discovers the issue wasn't as diagnosed but instead a blown hose that feeds gas to the fuel pump. I pick up my van this evening, charged only for the initial diagnostic, and I am issued an apology for the "misunderstanding". Meh, I wasn't going to fight it.
I hope one of these days I will have the strength to stand up like this. I recognize I am an easy target to some. It's the standing up part I have trouble with. I am so afraid of altercation that sometimes it cripples my ability to reconcile differences with others. One of these days I will look back on this incident and laugh at my cowardice, but for now I am just glad I have such an epic partner in crime.