September 15, 2007

• Meet the new car…

  …same as the old car, almost.

  The ’87 Subaru wagon I call Streak, which I have had for about five years, has had a new alternator, battery, exhaust system, front drive axles, and clutch linkage since I’ve owned it.  The clutch repair was more than a year ago, and at that time the mechanic said the throw out bearing was going and the transmission would need to be replaced soon.

  At the time, right after he fixed the clutch, I started hearing a sound so high in pitch that neither the mechanic nor the neighbor who took me to pick up my car could hear it.  Female hearing extends into a higher range than that of the male.  Maybe that’s why. 

  The noise would come and go as I let off the clutch pedal and pushed it in.  The mechanic said it was probably the throw out bearing.  I questioned him, and he reluctantly said that if it was the throw out bearing, it could go on like that “for a while,” and that it would probably make a lot of noise before it broke.

  Whatever it is, I have been listening to that noise for over a year as it grew louder and lower in pitch.  My son Doug has no trouble hearing it now.  After the last oil change at Mr.Lube, I started hearing a new sound when I turn the steering wheel.  Since even diagnostics and estimates cost money (of which I have none and the man who keeps me has not much to spare), we  had been discussing for a year whether it would be more economical to fix the car or replace it.

  Last month, Greyfox, my husband, the aforementioned sugar daddy, saw that someone had a Subaru “just like Streak” (he said) for sale.  He asked me if I wanted him to buy it.  Silly man… in many things I am decisive.  In matters of spending money I don’t have, going further into debt, I waffle and wonder if the immediate expenditure will save an even greater one, or prevent some major inconvenience or even disaster further on in time.  When the expenditure is for a used car, it’s even worse.  Then I have to wonder about the magnitude of the problems that have impelled the owner to sell it.

  I consulted an oracle.  Its advice was to hold off a few days and try to negotiate a lower price.  A few days later, Greyfox reported sadly that the car was no longer on the strip where it had been parked with a “for sale” sign.  I breathed a sigh of relief:  a difficult decision deferred.  Then some time later the car was back, Greyfox talked to the owner again, listened to it run, negotiated, and bought it.  That was right during the time when I was all chills-and-feverish, congested and experiencing other less pleasant flu-like symptoms.  We decided he’d keep it at his cabin until I felt better.  Then he would drive out here, get me, and I could take him back home and go grocery shopping at the same time.

  What obviously had been flu or a similar virus segued into a flareup of M.E., and I have been hors de combat, out of the fight, for many weeks, with currently no end in sight.  Roof repairs were interrupted, Doug has not only had to do all the water schlepping, but lots of other little chores I usually do, and take care of me.  The most disabling symptom is dyspnea.  Breathing is an effort.  In recent days, I have made it easier on myself by remembering to grab the nebulizer and load up on Albuterol before I try to get out of bed or up from this chair, and I take it with me wherever I go.  Sometimes I can walk slowly no more than ten to twelve feet before I have to stop and catch my breath.  At best, I can go maybe forty feet or so in a single burst of snail-like speed.  Getting to the outhouse is a challenge, and until yesterday was about the greatest challenge I had been willing to attempt.

  Greyfox had been accumulating a lot of stuff for us:  books, selected bits of newspapers, videos, non-perishable groceries and various bits of mungo from the dumpster at Felony Flats, until in his opinion my “new” Subaru was full to the brim.  We contemplated his bringing it all out here, unloading, and my taking him home and doing my shopping.  We contemplated that, waiting for me to recover sufficiently to do the shopping, until Doug and I had run out of a lot of things and had to pay the triple prices locally for a few essentials. 

  Then we decided that I’d give Greyfox a shopping list and he’d do the shopping for me.  He unloaded a bunch of the junk in order to make room for the groceries.  We left open the question of whether I’d drive him back home and return here with my car, or whether the car would go back again with him.  Doug is still on his learner’s permit… but that’s another story. 

  I took it easy, conserving energy yesterday as Doug and Greyfox unloaded the car, except for a set of snow tires on rims that came with the car.  After some discussion as we were ready to leave, about where we’d store them, I said, “just leave them there for now.”   I drove Greyfox home.  Doug went along for backup in case of emergency, even though there was only a brief window of time before he needed to be back for the start of his weekly online D&D session.

  Before we left here, I noticed a tire was almost flat.  Greyfox said, “No wonder the car was pulling to the right.”  Doug used our inflater and aired it up.  Greyfox rode shotgun and uncorked my nebulizer for me to use when I needed it.  On the drive to town, he pointed out modifications the mechanic
  who had owned the car had made:  a manual choke, the heater control
  dial replaced with a toggle switch, the radio replaced with a
  non-functional CD player, etc.  I observed that the man had been a
  mechanic, but not very skilled at electrical or electronic work. 

  We had intended to load the junk back up that Greyfox had taken out to make room for groceries, and some books he’d forgotten, etc.  We left all that behind because I was feeling pretty ragged and Doug was in a hurry to get home.  None of us was at our sharpest mental best.  Doug and I made two stops on the way home.  Coming out of the Meadow Lakes Discount Center, empty-handed because they’d had no tortillas, I saw that the tire was almost flat again.  Doug got the inflater out, hooked it up, then stood up, shook his head, stuck the head back in the car and told me that the tire wouldn’t take air.  The valve stem had come off.

  Feeling grateful for having left the extra tires in there, since the spare is a weird little thing bolted on top of the air cleaner, I backed the car to a quiet corner of the parking lot.  Doug got out, saying, “I hope we have all the necessary tools.”  We did, after a fashion.  There was a good hydraulic jack that, even when blocked up with the chunk of lumber supplied, wouldn’t raise the car high enough to get the tire on, and the same sort of flimsy screw jack we have in Streak.  As Doug was getting back in the car after having completed the task, he said that the valve stem appeared to have been attached to the mag wheel with epoxy.

  We stopped again, at Miller’s Market in Houston.  I waited in the car while Doug went in for ice cream cones.  We had both forgotten about tortillas by then.  I ate enough of my ice cream so that I thought I could handle the rest as I drove, and handed it off to Doug.  He had his strawberry cheesecake cone in one hand and my soft serve vanilla melting in the other, as I turned the key to start our new car.  Nothing happened.  None of the gauges lit up, nothing.  I fiddled with it, tried several times, took back my ice cream, ate a little of it and thought.

  I figured that Greyfox would have the former owner’s phone number, and maybe I could find out if there was some tricky thing to do with the ignition switch.  If that failed, I could call AAA.  We got out and went in the store looking for a public phone.  A few times we’ve discussed my getting a cell for such situations, but can’t justify the expense for something I’d use maybe a couple of times a year.  There was no phone nearby.  Doug couldn’t use my AAA card and I couldn’t walk the distance to the bar where there was rumored to be a pay phone.

  I got in, popped the hood latch, and got out.  The first thing either of us noticed upon first sight of our new car’s works was that the battery cables and terminals looked small and flimsy by comparison to what we are used to.  I was wiggling terminals and tracing wires when a wiry and wobbly silver-haired, gray-bearded drunk stepped up and got in my way.

  Right away, we had several problems.  I am not sufficiently highly spiritually evolved to suffer fools or drunks gladly.  He was smoking a cigarette, waving it around, blowing smoke in my face as he spoke to me.  I am allergic to tobacco smoke, and was teetering on the thin edge of status asthmaticus already.  I am also reasonably knowledgeable and competent at mechanical things, and this guy started right out treating me as if I were as idiotic as he was.

  He asked what the problem was.  I replied shortly, “no power.”  He reached out toward the carburetor, did a double take at the spare tire, gestured vaguely, and slurred, “prob’ly not getting enough gas.”

  I sighed, and wheezed out, “No, electrical power — not getting any juice, nothing!”  Then he peered around and finally found the battery, pointed at it, and said, “problem’s the battery…  Your battery’s no good.  All your electricity comes from the battery there.”

  Practically unable and largely unwilling to try to keep the contempt out of my tone, I did try to compensate a bit with my words:  “I know that, sir.”  Then he looked at me, I think for the first time.  I told him we’d been looking for a phone.  He said there was one at the bar.  Then without pause he went on to say, “There’s help here, but you gotta listen to get help.  We’re all locals.  We help each other.”

  I lowered the hood slowly, to give him time to get his arm out of the way, and got back in the car, using what breath I had to mutter something about getting away from his cigarette.  That time, when I turned the key, the car started.  My soft serve vanilla cone was dripping in Doug’s hand.  He had one napkin, and I used it, getting it soaked and stuck to my waffle cone.

  I licked and slurped the ice cream into what I supposed was good enough shape to deal with as I drove, and pulled out onto the highway.  The ice cream had been too long neglected and was liquefying faster than I could lick it up.  I got drips down my shirt and on the steering wheel before I pulled off the road.  Doug jumped out, went to the hatch and brought back a roll of paper towels.  I got one of them stuck to my cone, too, and did a lot of wiping, slurping, picking and peeling before wrapping a fresh towel around my cone and pulling back onto the highway.

  I had drips all down my front again before I’d put away the last of the ice cream, but Doug wiped them off for me as I drove.  We had some stuff to drop off at his dad’s place:  the last two volumes of the Harry Potter series, and he had some stuff for us, but he wasn’t home.  I knew where to find him, and when we got there he was ready to go  home, so we gave him a ride.  Finally, Doug and I got home.  Sitting there in the driveway beside Streak, we discussed a name for the new car.  Very quickly, we settled on “Blur.”

   I made a quick call to Greyfox to tell him we’d arrived safely.  I think he took the news of our car troubles harder than we did.  I learned as a child that when one buys a used car one is buying someone else’s car trouble.  Doug has had lots of troubles of various sorts in his life and just doesn’t let much get to him at all.  Blur has no roof rack.  I will want to do some electrical work on him, exchange his battery with Streak’s, and fix a few other things. 

  In the plus column, all four doors and the hatch open and have weather stripping intact.  Streak’s weather stripping  hangs loose.  In all the time we’ve owned him there have never been more than three doors that would open and in winter sometimes only one.  In Streak, return springs on the ignition switch and the hatch latch are broken.  Blur’s work. 

  I will miss having the roof rack.  I still need to get used to the higher RPM shift points and the manual choke in Blur.  I don’t have a source for any more of the limited edition UNLOADED stickers, but that’s balanced by the fact that Blur is tabula rasa for new bumper stickers whenever something worthwhile comes along.  Best of all, now Doug can go on learning to drive in Streak with no anxieties over the failing steering and drive train.  It all works out.

  • 3:18 pm
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