Car problems.

Brian's funeral was on Saturday. I wanted to go, but I don't think it was meant to be. My car, which had been acting up, stalled out on me on a quiet suburban street, and the nice lady I'm staying with had to come rescue me.

Previous to this incident, it was dropping out of gear suddenly and getting stuck in first, then dragging itself along and making this awful grinding sound, and THEN it would suddenly jump back into gear. The first time it did this, my stomach clenched with anxiety but I was able to make it back to my sister's house. My sister's husband took a long look at the engine, and the only thing he really could tell was that the battery was corroded. He cleaned the positive connection on my battery and it was good for a day, then did the same thing again, but this time it wouldn't get out of first gear. I had, again, been driving down a busy freeway when it started doing this. My stomach plunged straight through the floor of the car and got left on the freeway somewhere. The RPM meter was flopping all over the place, and I couldn't get it to accelerate. I barely made it back to my sister's house, and had to have it towed the following morning to a transmission place that came highly recommended from the mechanic my sister's husband goes to when he has a problem he can't fix (he works on CAT machines).

Six days and $500 later, they changed a sensor in the engine that was "really corroded" and they told me it had a "more than 50%" chance of fixing the problem. I had them tow it on Wednesday morning, didn't get it back until Monday, and the following Thursday it got stuck in first gear (going down a freeway again), but this time it was unable to jump back into the correct gear and an awful burning smell floated through the cabin. That was the moment when full-fledged panic ensued in my brain and my body reacted in three ways: first, my stomach shrunk into a hard ball of lead and plunged down with enough force to land it somewhere in the first few layers of earth, second, my heart rate jumped about three times higher than it had been and I was afraid it was going to jump right out of my throat if I opened my mouth at all, and third, I clamped my mouth shut tight, just in case.

I screeched into the Target parking lot, turned off the car, and cried like a baby for a couple of seconds. Then I called T, and cried a couple more seconds, and then I thought, "I'm at Target. I could get a few things." So I let the car sit for a half hour while I tried to calm my nerves by doing the only thing I could think of; shopping for things I don't need. So I bought a can of Pringles, some groceries, and some medication, and by the time I checked out, it was sleeting pretty well outside. I trudged to my car, got in, started it, and it was fine.

Okay, let's just take the side roads back. This is my thought, as I'm rolling out of the parking lot at about 5 mph, when the RPM meter starts doing that flipping around thing, and the car seems to be choking on its own fumes. Coughing, coughing, then it's fine. I got frustrated at this point and decided to see if I could MAKE it do this weird thing on command. So I drove all over the parking lot, accelerating fast and slow, decelerating fast and slow, turning sharp and smooth corners, and it was fine. I drove out of the parking lot and the damn thing stalled in the middle of the road.

So much for that idea. I'm calling Jan. I restarted the car, rolled back into the parking lot, parked, took a deep breath, and called Jan (the lady I'm staying with). I then proceeded to call T, who called Target to let them know about my car for me, because I next needed to call my boss to tell him I wasn't sure what time I'd be making it in to work the next day.

Fast-forward to Friday morning, and T has driven an hour and a half to drive me to work and find a different place for the car to be worked on. He had it towed to a place called Honest One Automotive and they figured out what was wrong with it in about 15 minutes and had that and the axles replaced over the weekend. And for a decent price, too.

I got the car back today, and it feels...funny. Maybe it's because I haven't driven it normally in a few weeks, but it just feels weird to me. And every time I get in, I get this awful preemptive anxious feeling, and with every gear shift of the transmission I feel like my eyes are glued to the RPM meter to some how "make sure" it doesn't start doing that again.

Hopefully I'll be able to make it home tonight...