Bad Gas

I've said it many times before: I love my car.

Yes, it's an old car with over 100,000 miles on the odometer. Yes, it's a shade of blue that really shouldn't exist in this dimension. Yes, the lock on the driver's side door sometimes sticks and I have to climb in from the passenger side. But despite all of this, I enjoy driving it (now that I've finally become comfortable with the stick shift), it gets me where I want to go, and it runs better than any other car I've ever had.

Well, until earlier this week, that is. Both my car and I suffered from tummy troubles.

I had to bow out of a potluck at Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern's house on Sunday night. I wasn't feeling well; my stomach felt as though I had lunched on Brillo pads. Worried that I was contagious (or that I would spend most of the time monopolizing the bathroom), I chose to spend the evening watching the DVD of Before Sunrise that I had rented earlier that week. (I wanted to see Before Sunset, but I figured it would be best if I'd seen the first movie. Or finished it, rather. I'd started watching it many years ago on cable at 3:00 in the morning, only to fall asleep in the last 20 minutes. The video store had them both in stock, so I decided that a two-night Richard Linklater festival was called for during the new year's festivities.)

The next morning, I felt much better. The Brillo pads had apparently dissolved overnight, and I made my way down to the garage to set off for work.

The car stalled out pretty much as soon as I started it. It proceeded to stall several more times on my way to the Zoo. When it wasn't stalling, it was jerking and hesitating, like it was having a hard time maintaining power. After chugging and sputtering my way into the parking lot, I sighed, pocketed my keys, and called my parents.

We arranged to meet after work and have someone follow me to my mechanic's garage (on the other side of town, but so worth the drive - he's taken care of all of my misfit cars since the days when I first got my license). Around 2:30 or so, I went out to check and see if the car was still running funny. (I would hve hated to have my parents waste their time if it was just a slight hiccup that had worked itself out.)

The car wouldn't start. I called MyoMom back, and told her to send a tow truck instead. (The tow truck, called for at 4:00 pm on Monday, didn't actually arrive until 11:00 am on Tuesday. Sigh.)

At one time, there was a bus line that ran from my neighborhood to the Zoo, but (as I discovered during the latest incarnation of The Great White Death) the line was rerouted to serve the hospitals rather than the Zoo. I could have gotten a transfer, but it would have required me leaving the house at 7:45 to get to the office by 9:00. I could have walked to the Zoo in that time. Thankfully my parents offered to shuttle me to and from work. (Have I mentioned lately how cool my parents are?)

After being snowed in for the holidays, the idea of being stuck in my apartment again with no transporation wasn't a happy one. I didn't have anything planned and anywhere in particular to go, but I was still a little bummed.

I finally heard from my mechanic (via MyoDad) yesterday. Apparently there was water in the fuel line, probably from bad gas, and it had gummed up all of the plugs and filters in the engine. They'd flushed the line, replaced pretty much everything, and changed the oil and antifreeze. We picked up the car after work. I am happily mobile again.

So essentially, I got all of the work done that I'd been putting off anyway (tune up, oil change, winterizing) all in one fell swoop. It wasn't really the way I wanted to have it done, but at least it was something fixable. (And, in retrospect, kind of humorous. JohnnyB was quite amused when I told him that the bad gas had fouled up the fuel line. "That's what you get for stopping at Taco Bell," he remarked. I guess that the Speedway near my house is the automotive equivalent of chili-cheese burritos: cheap, but ultimately not good for you.)

I have a car again. Guess that means I should start working on those "get off the couch and out of the house" resolutions, huh?