Aug 28 2012
It Takes a Village
On Monday morning, I drove to the new jobette. Needless to say, other people had taken up our allotted parking spaces – we now have signs up, but didn’t then – so I parked two blocks away.
At lunch, I went to the car to run some errands. I turned the key and the engine made the usual sound, but failed to catch. I tried a couple more times before calling my brother.
It turned out that he was a couple of blocks away himself, on his way in to work. He also tried and failed to start the car. I walked over to the mechanic’s and explained the situation. They sent a guy over to see if he could figure out what was wrong with Miss Scarlett, but he also couldn’t – she had to get to the garage to be diagnosed.
So I called the one tow truck in town and went to wait for him. He attached the car to the tow truck pretty quickly, and then offered me a lift to the mechanic’s. We went about 4 or 5 blocks and it cost $70. Fortunately, I just have to email or fax the receipt to the insurance agent to be reimbursed.
In the meantime, it was too late in the day for the mechanic to figure out what ailed Miss Scarlett, let alone fix it. Fortunately for me, my kind-hearted co-worker Erin lives just a couple of miles away from me in Hooterville, so she gave me a lift home. On the way, we stopped off to pick up her son at her mother’s house (which is literally a rose-covered cottage in the Village) and register him for kindergarten, which started today. Erin’s Mom even offered me the loan of her (very nice) car while mine was being fixed.
This morning, the mechanic told me it was the ignition coil, which will be $325 to fix. Later, he changed his mind, and as I write, I’m still not sure what’s wrong with the car or whether I can drive it home tonight. But I’m glad that I did try the car at lunch yesterday, instead of the end of the work day, that the tow truck and my brother were close by, and that I have such great people in my life to help me out in the meantime.