Dancing on the Edge

Did You Hear That Sound?

It was money being flushed down the toilet. A lot of money.

See that picture? It's my vehicle. Right now it is sitting in the repair bay at Meineke where it has been since yesterday and where it will stay until probably early afternoon on Wednesday (unless a miracle happens; then it will be late tomorrow afternoon).

Yesterday I drove up to a nearby shopping area to get my haircut. About three business' away from my desired location I heard a horrible noisy squeal. I wasn't sure if it came from my car or one of the cars ahead of me. Ever in denial, I opted to think it was someone else. I pulled into a parking spot and went in to get my hair cut. I returned to the car and started the engine. No denying it now. My car was making a horrible noise. Since I was only 6 blocks from home I thought I would attempt to get there. Then I could wait until this morning to call AAA and have it towed somewhere.

Um...yeah..the best laid plans and all. I hadn't gone very far when white smoke starting billowing from the back, followed by a nasty burning rubber smell. "Ok," I thought to myself, "it's a belt. I need to stop." I pulled into a parking space and called D who was at home with the kids (and this is where I interject that I am SO thankful they were not with me! There was enough stress happening.). Then I called AAA.

The tow truck arrived about 30 minutes after my initial call and hooked up the car. I jumped in the cab and took a ride to the repair shop. Dakota met me there and took me home. We weren't too upset because these things happen. It's all part of owning a vehicle. At least everyone is safe and after a few hundred dollars in repair cost, everything will be as good as new.

Yes. You may laugh hysterically now. I know. I'm so naive.

This afternoon the phone rings. The conversation quickly moved from pleasantries to "Do you have an extended warranty on the vehicle." We all know what that means, right? "Um..no. I don't." It's a 2002 and we have never, ever bought an extended warranty for any of our vehicles before. I may be rethinking that in the future.

The air conditioning compressor, which continually runs if the engine is on, seized. The belt that turns the unit was still trying to turn it: hence the burning rubber smell. These things happen, the nice tech explained. He also explained how the vehicle cannot run without the compressor so.......

There goes a whole lotta money. By the time the part (over $1100), labor and tax is added up we'll be closing in on about $1800. $1800 that we, of course, don't have just sitting around. I tried not to cry when he told me. I tried to act like it was no big deal - like I expected it and was ready for it, relieved it wasn't higher. I think he was reading me like a book. He said he was really, really sorry. Yeah, me too. Stupid car! I gave the go ahead. What else could I do? I can't *not* get it fixed.

Today, of all days, D forgot to take her cell phone with her and she was, at that very moment, enroute to her day class. So while I waited for her to get to school and log into her IM account I had a nervous breakdown.

I talked with D who assured me that one way or another we'll be ok. It'll all work out. So then we focused on the positive side of things:

1) I stopped immediately so there was no damage to the engine.
2) I wasn't driving fast so it didn't cause an accident.
3) The kids were not in the car with me.
4) The kids are healthy and so are we.
5) No one we know died.
6) It's "just money". (I'm still processing that. It's a LOT of money and will stretch us beyond our limit. Hopefully tax time will be good to us. REALLY good to us.)
7) It's something that we can throw money at and fix - unlike if, God forbid, one of the kids were really sick with something terrible. We couldn't fix that no matter how much money we threw at it. (So true!)

So it's going to be ok.

Somehow.

Somehow it will be ok. I just have to have faith that things will work out like it should.

And from now on, I'm going to take a long hard look at buying the extended warranty for a vehicle. (Although this is actually the first time in all my years of vehicle ownership that I would have been able to use it.)

*sigh*