Read My Lips - the blog

Maybe I didn't eat enough black-eyed peas . . .

As I left my car at the service department of the local dealership on Monday, I think I had a premonition that I would never see her alive again. As I described her symptoms to the mechanic, I told him that I felt of her hood when I pulled into my garage Sunday evening, and she seemed to have a high fever.

The van from the dealership took me on to work, and I worried all day that I was going to get a call that an expensive repair would be needed. After all, January is when the taxes on my house are due, and I'm still recovering from Christmas. Late in the afternoon, the phone rang, and they told me that they still hadn't been able to diagnose the problem, and that she would have to spend the night so that they could run more tests the next morning.

I had already promised Tig that I would come over and help him move, so I called my son, who just got a red Mustang and was glad for any excuse to drive it. I was waiting outside when he pulled up. I got in and he asked, "So how was your day at school," amused by how the tables had turned.

Before heading to Tig's, we went by the dealership to get a few things out of my car. As I left, I told the mechanic, "Take good care of her--She's never been away from home all night."

Mid-morning on Tuesday, the phone rang; it was the mechanic, calling me the progress on my car's repair.

"Moona, how are you today?"

His voice sounded strangely apprehensive. "I'm . . . not sure. Maybe you should tell me." My stomach tightened as I imagined needing a new transmission.

"Well, we still hadn't pinpointed the problem, so the technician took it out on the highway to see if he could duplicate the problem that you described . . . [There was again a big pause.]

"The technician is in the hospital. You're car isn't in very good shape either."

When lunch came, my friend took me to the body shop. When I asked to see my car, the shop manager took me around to the back, where I saw my car's mangled body. "It's totaled," he said.

I guess I didn't eat enough black-eyed peas.

But that wasn't the end of it.

The car dealer called the local Enterprise and told them to reserve me a car at their expense. The car turned out to be a great big, gas-guzzlin' pick-up.

I was really wound up after all of the happenings of the day, so I thought a drive would do me good. So I called Tig to see if he needed more help with the movin.'

By the time I got there, he was beginnin' to feel kinda puny, but we had some supper & went back to his office and started movin' some stuff. He had big bushelfuls of different kinds of soft drinks, but he only drinks Dr. Peppers. He offered the rest to me--There were two great big baskets full of'm.

Tig was beginning to feel worse, so I said good-by and started the 30-mile trip home. As I was drivin,' I thought that helpin' Tig had really been the best thing I could do to relax. He's a laugh a minute, y'know, plus I worked off some of my bein' so wound up. I thought--Nothing more could happen today. The pick-up had less than 3000 miles and ran great. It was so big that if I hit a deer, it would just bounce off.

But that was not to be. As I pulled up to the four-way stop sign at the intersection coming into the town where I live, I heard a noise. I looked in the rear-view mirror only to see cans of soft drink rolling all over the middle of the intersection. I was quite a sight runnin' around and pickin' up cans of soda before more cars entered the intersection.

I can hardly wait to see what's going to happen today.

Posted by Susan R at January 5, 2005 07:48 AM