I’m still trying to process this all so forgive me if my
spelling or grammar is not so good.
Normally I care about such things.
Not so much right now.
Last night my husband and father-in-law traded vehicles
because my husband needed the one with a trailer hitch. At 3:30 today, my husband called me saying
that his dad was stranded on the freeway because our Civic had an electrical
problem and shut off. David needed to be
somewhere at 6:00 and someone with our AAA card had to be there for them to tow
our car. I’m 29 weeks pregnant and have
a three-year-old who is supposed to be napping, but we rolled with it and
headed downtown (30 miles) to the rescue!
It was about 94 degrees out.
The Civic:
My FIL was driving home from work when he saw smoke under
the dash intermittently. He had just
gotten on the freeway when the locks started locking and unlocking. He tried the windows thinking that he might
end up locked in. They worked after several tries. Then the car shut off. He was in rush hour traffic in a construction
zone, but was able to coast the car into a narrow median from an on-ramp. He took the keys out and climbed out the
window to call 911. It was noisy, but he
managed to get a message through. After
hanging up, he turned around and saw that the civic was MOVING. It was trying to start itself—it’s a
manual—and since it was in first gear, it was actually going forward. (I don’t even know how that works without the
clutch in, but I’m no expert.) He put
the car in neutral and then just had to wait for it to give up trying to
move. The police came and he was towed
to an accident discovery site because it wasn’t safe to stay where he was.
Just wait. It gets
better.
The Odyssey:
We’d been having a problem with our van where the idle would
randomly jump up to 15+ miles per hour.
It didn’t happen often, but when it did, I was very worried that I would
hit a car or person if I didn’t hit the breaks fast enough. So we took it in and had it fixed—or so we
thought! It’s been working for 2-3 weeks
since the repair, but as soon as I hit the rush our traffic today, of course,
the problem started coming back. At
first it was just idling fast and I had to stay on the break in gridlock
traffic. And then it just got worse and
worse, which has never happened before.
It used to quit after a few
minutes and go about its business, but that van must have known that I was 29
weeks with a three-year-old in 94 degree heat going to the rescue, because the
idle got as high as 40 mph AND the A/C quit.
I had just come from bible study where we’ve been going
through Daniel. One of the key application
points, which I will probably never EVER forget, is that when you’re in an
emergency, you can panic, you can be paralyzed, or you can pray. Well, believe me, I started to panic, but I
also remembered to pray. I told my son
to pray that God would keep us safe. I
am pretty sure his verbatim prayer was, “Dear Jesus, keep us safe,” and then he
went back to looking at all the trucks and cars on the road. I thank God that he didn’t decide to have a
meltdown at any time during this ordeal.
I was a few miles from my exit weighing my options. My FIL is a good mechanic, so I figured it
was best to get the van to him for help.
Well, I got off and then drove right past him. I was on a bridge, he was down bellow, and
there was nothing I could do… I got back
off on the next exit and proceeded to drive around downtown to get back to
him. I couldn’t. I passed him a second time, but couldn’t turn
left to get to him. I drove through a
sketchy neighborhood. The idle problem
got worse. It got to the point where I
was literally standing off my seat with both feet on the break out of my seat
to keep the car stopped at red lights. I
was trying to get directions and they told me I’d have to get back on the
freeway a THIRD time when I gave up. I
am bad with directions, but I had the presence of mind to remember the
landmarks where I’d last seen the civic, so I found an empty college parking
lot where I stopped the van, turned it off, and yanked my son out of the
car. (It smelled funny. At this point I wasn’t ruling out the
possibility that it was going to explode or something. Not because it seemed likely, but just
because it was turning out to be that kind of day.)
I was on the phone with my FIL and he ended up jogging the
couple of blocks over to us to look at the van.
My son, bless his three-year-old heart, had no idea how stressed his
mother was. He was so fascinated by all
the cars on the street that I had to hold him to be sure he wouldn’t run out
into said cars! This is not super
comfortable when one is 29 weeks pregnant!
But, Grandpa found us quickly and we went back to look at the car. It was too hot to try turning it on. The college we were parked at was locked up,
so we walked a few blocks to a tech school where we were able to get in and
find water, A/C, and bathrooms. (You
don’t make it far without a bathroom when you’re three or 29 weeks
pregnant.)
Oh, I forgot to mention that because I’m pregnant, they put
a high priority on our case to get the tow truck there quickly. But then the tow truck broke down. So they told us it would be at least 90
minutes until he got there. We thought
we had plenty of time! The towing
service called me about 30 minutes in and asked, “did you lose a ’98 Civic?” Ha ha.
He was already there, but we were a few blocks away from our “working”
vehicle and I didn’t have the slightest idea how to get there. My FIL thought it would be okay to try turning
the van on again by this time, so we went back to it and it turned on. Not only was it idling at completely normal
speed, but THE AIR WAS WORKING. I’m
serious—the van knows I am pregnant with a three-year-old and it’s really hot
out. It is trying to PUNISH me. But I am thankful, because we don’t have to
call AAA for a second tow truck.
My FIL knows the city a tad (ok a lot) better than me, so he
got us to the Civic where we had the car picked up. Then we drove the van home without a single
problem.
I think I’m ready for a new car.
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