I've been thinking the past several days about what to say to the mechanic when I bring it in on Friday. I'm already bringing it in for the scratches on the car that I think they made when they were fixing my power steering (return?) hose, as well as the radio volume knob that they didn't get to. But I haven't told the guy that I want him to check the hesitation and vibration and "The Second Sound" too. At least not yet, because I don't know how to explain it to him.
I've felt anxious about my car ever since the 5th, when that goddamn "Second Sound" came back. It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid of driving my car now. For example, there wasn't a single fucking thing I had to do at home last night, so it would have been the perfect time to go out and enjoy myself. But I didn't go out because I didn't want to deal with any problems, recurring or new, coming from the car. (Well, that and the fact that I thought I should save money because I lost out on $110 from the experiment Friday.)
So I've got to nip this in the bud. I cannot do so any closer than Friday because Friday begins a new cycle for my credit card, and I've already racked up $700 on it for this month; anything I get charged for bringing the car in before Friday, I think, will only add to that when it's easier to just push it to next month. Hopefully my car can hold on till then. I think it will, but I've driven this car for almost 20 years; I know this car, and it's not driving as good as it can.
The problem is I can't quite articulate what I'm worried about. "The Second Sound" is a whinier sound that accompanies the acceleration from my car, and I'm afraid that the mechanic won't think there's anything wrong with that. The vibration comes mostly through the stick shift. I don't think that's normal, but it's not as if I drive with my hand on the shift selector while I drive, so I'm scared that he won't have any idea what I'm talking about and believe I'm hearing things. I swear, I'm not hearing things!!! Finally, I'm going to try and convince him to either test-drive it with me or allow me to take him around the area to illustrate how hard it is to accelerate with so much resistance, especially at low gears at the beginning of the day. But I'm scared that he'll either be at the wheel or the passenger seat and the car will just drive fine, like it has a mind of its own and wants to torment me. Or, worse, the car does drive as unsteadily and hard as it always has, but he doesn't think there's anything wrong.
My anxiety grew driving it today. My Fucking Father humiliated me just before I headed off to the library, where I'm typing this right now, and exercising (will talk about fucking him soon). As I was driving to Burger King, I felt the car not accelerating as smoothly as I wanted it to. So my temper got the best of me, and I felt this need to "fight through" my car's hesitation, so I just gunned the gas. And maybe this is obvious, but the transmission started to slip; in other words, I spiked the tachometer in order to try get the gas to accelerate faster, and all I did was switch gears at speeds it normally doesn't switch at. I think that's bad for the transmission.
I was scared of going back into my car after eating at BK, but there were a lot less problems driving from there to here. It's still slow to accelerate and it's not idling steadily, but hey, at least I didn't slip the tranny. Now I just have to survive till Friday. And in the meantime, I have to convince the mechanic there are problems with my car, I just don't know how the hell to say it.
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