I've talked about oil stains on our driveway. They largely abated when I got the leaks from my engine sealed up, but they're back -- not as bad as they were, but they're back. I've been trying to use this compound which they say will get it out, but so far it hasn't worked.
I drove home last (Monday) night as it was starting to rain. The forecast called for a shower, maybe even a thunderstorm. It would be sporadic and it probably was going to be brief, but the likelihood of that occurring some time in the evening was high. So I was thinking about the rain pelting the oil stains on the driveway when I thought, Well, it would be nice if those stains were exposed to the rain, wouldn't it? Instead of having my car shield it during the storm, maybe the rain could attack it away, you know?
So in the last minute, I decide to park at the part of the driveway right next to the stains. My driveway is three car lengths wide, and I usually park in the right-most third. I parked in the middle third, and my parents usually park in the left-most third, which is the part furthest from the front door. Anyway, the drops were starting to get bigger and become more frequent, and I thought I did the right thing and headed inside.
But as the storm started to come I realized another thing. That right-most part of the driveway is under our tree's overhang. It's not a complete canopy, but it does shield some of the incoming rain. And all I thought about was this deluge pelting my car relentlessly. Never the mind the fact that it's a car (and old one, but nevertheless a car) and not a lump of sugar; it's not going to melt in the oncoming rain, as it hasn't many times when I've taken it to work or the shopping mall or the strip club and it poured; I was looking outside and seeing my poor car tremble in the face of an imminent rainstorm as the driveway next to it, and the shelter over it, was ... well, you see, it was getting rained on over there, too. There are branches overhead, but it's not complete cover, and I could see that part of the driveway get wet, too. But all I could think of, after trying to convince myself not to go outside, was, "Fuck the stains! I can't leave my poor car out in the open like that!!"
So I toss away the Doritos I'm eating, dash outside before the rain really starts to come, and start my car. Like a reckless idiot I back it down just a tad, steer my front wheels rightward towards the stains and stick-shift it from Reverse to Drive. But as I step down on the accelerator -- not to gun it because you're not supposed to when you're just on your driveway -- my car does what it has been doing too goddamn often these days: Not move. It was in stasis for two, maybe three seconds before the nose of the car not so much as went forward as shook like it was about to vomit though its hood. From there it shimmied ever so terrifyingly (for the car like it was scared and for me like I was scared of the car) before it finally got to the spot where I wanted it to go.
It got bad during this minute, and it got a whole hell of a lot worse once I got back inside. Looking at my car the tree offered little shelter; there is a huge branch above where the hood is, and so I don't think too many raindrops hit the front of my car, but from the reflection of the drops of my (cracked) sunroof it made no damn difference whether I parked it there or the space over. And now I knew once again how this awful knock sensor is hurting my car -- information I kind of knew already, but that for which I unnecessarily made happen again because I became too chickenshit scared that my car was going to be destroyed in a rainstorm ... a rainstorm, by the way, that was heavy but lasted no more than ten minutes.
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