Note to Reader: This is one of a continuing series of postings chronicling my son Greg's senior year in high school.
"Mom, my car is making a weird rattling noise" ranks among the top ten things you don't want to hear from your child. Five minutes later, Greg backed out of the driveway, and I had the opportunity to hear the rattling noise for myself. Even from inside the house, it sounded pretty ominous. So we took our 2002 Saturn to the auto service shop up the road. This was last Saturday. They called later in the afternoon to tell us the culprit was the water pump, a $300 repair. Not good, but not as bad as it could have been, I thought. "Okay," I told them, "go ahead and replace the water pump." Since it was Saturday, we understood it would be Monday before they could get the part and do the work, so we made do for the weekend.
Monday afternoon, the shop called. "Here's the good news: it's not the water pump! Unfortunately, your air conditioner compressor is dead." I already knew that; the air conditioning quit working a year ago. Saturn's repair quote was in excess of $900, so we decided to just live without the a/c. After all, it's a seven-year-old car with over 150,000 miles on it. "The problem is," the service technician explained, "the compressor is on the serpentine belt, which is about to fall off. It's also connected to the alternator and the power steering, and, if it goes, then you'll be stranded."
STRANDED. There it is -- every parent's 3rd Worst Fear, right behind #1 "Abduction By A Stranger," and #2 "Terrorist Attack." Given that, at 17, Greg is not likely to be abducted, and, as Dick Cheney keeps coming out of retirement to remind us, we haven't suffered a terrorist attack in nearly eight years, Worst Fear #3 "Stranded By The Roadside" has unequivocably moved up to first place. Well, we can't have that, can we?
Not that my own parents were so concerned, judging by the three times I found my own teenage/young adult self stranded by the roadside! Twice I was forced to pull off the road by a busted radiator hose. One of those times, the car I was driving -- a 1975 Oldsmobile Regency -- lost a radiator hose in the middle of Parallel Parkway in Kansas City, Kansas . . . during afternoon rush hour. I managed to steer the car over to the curb, where it sputtered to a stop. But, considering I was in the left-hand lane when the hose blew, there was no way to get the car completely out of traffic. Plus, it was a huge car (my husband later nicknamed it the "S.S. Coble") -- my parents' one and only luxury car -- not easy to maneuver off the road or to drive around. Needless to say, my disabled luxury liner caused a big traffic backup. I turned on the hazard lights and walked to a nearby grocery store to use a pay phone to call my dad (yes, children, this was back in the Dark Ages, before cell phones). Dad was at work and more than a little annoyed, but he called a tow service and promised he'd be there in a few minutes to pick me up. Meanwhile, a police officer arrived to direct traffic. About 20 minutes later the tow truck arrived, as did my dad -- incredulous that his "baby" (the car, not me) had burst a hose, overheated, and stalled . . . and seemingly oblivious to the fact that it would have happened anyway, no matter who was driving.
A few years later, out of college and temporarily living at home, I was driving my dad's Oldsmobile Starfire (his one and only sports car--and an Olds; I think I'm seeing a pattern here). One night, on my way home from teaching flute lessons at a music store, the timing chain on the Starfire broke, stranding me on Shawnee Mission Parkway, somewhere west of Pflumm. I say "somewhere" because, at the time, there was practically no development there -- it was, quite literally, out in the country. Still in the pre-cell phone era, I turned on the hazard lights, locked the car, and walked about half a mile back to the nearest gas station, where I called my boyfriend from a pay phone. Steve came and rescued me (yes, I married him later,and this is one of the many reasons). We left a note on the windshield so the police would know the car was stranded, and we drove back to my house to give my dad the bad news. Dad, of course, was absolutely stunned that an eight-year-old timing chain would just suddenly break like that. Well, what can I say? They don't make cars like they used to.
Now, I'm sure my parents worried about me driving, especially alone and after dark. But they rarely showed it, funneling their fears instead into frustration over the car's mechanical failures. Maybe that was the best strategy for them, but I prefer to take a more proactive approach: I get regular oil changes and, while I'm there, I ask the technician to do a brake inspection and check all the hoses. ("As God is my witness, I will never be stranded again!") Still, one can't foresee everything that will go wrong. At least this time, with the Saturn, we had a little warning.
Not so in August, 1989 when Steve and I drove our little Honda CRX to New Orleans for the National Flute Association Convention. The Honda, a.k.a. "The Shoe" because it looked like Nike athletic footwear, had previously belonged to Steve's stepmom. When she married his dad in 1986, she needed a bigger car (the Honda was a two-seater). We needed a car, so we bought it. It worked great, no problems -- we even drove it to San Diego in 1988 for the NFA Convention. Maybe the California trip put too much stress on the a/c; maybe it was just bad karma . . . all we know is the air conditioner sputtered and died just as we crossed the Louisiana state line. Fortunately, we didn't have to do much driving in New Orleans. Our hotel was within walking distance of the convention site and the French Quarter. It was the drive back to Kansas City that nearly killed us. Imagine driving through Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas in an athletic shoe, without air conditioning. Did I mention it was the middle of August?
In the aftermath of that experience, we decided to trade the car during the winter rather than face another summer driving around in a shoe-shaped sauna. Our next adventure in driving sans air conditioning came more than a decade later when the compressor in our minivan quit working. Once again, the event happened in August, but we were willing to do without the a/c since cooler weather was on the way. But in the spring? You guessed it -- we traded the van.
So, when I think about it, although we've lost compressors before, we've never had the vehicle long enough to find out what happens to a dead one. It never occurred to us that the compressor actually affects other vital functions besides the air conditioning. Well, as the saying goes, you learn something new every day!
The shop gave us a 10% discount, which brought the final total just under $800. Greg willingly paid half. The engine no longer rattles, and the bonus is that Greg now has air conditioning. Not that he really needs it, now that the weather is getting cooler. Still, the defogger on that vehicle works much more efficiently with the a/c running; he'll be glad to have it in the winter. And me? I'm glad that Worst Fear #3 has been averted. Now I can concentrate on Worst Fear #4: "How To Pay For College." Right now my strategy is to cross my fingers and hope we don't have any more expensive car repairs!
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