And I had time to check the coolant level in my car. It was low, so I went into the trunk and grabbed the leftover antifreeze jug that's been lying around and topped it off. But hey, it looks funny. And then I saw it was the kind where you're supposed to dilute it with distilled water. I didn't. Whoops.
But maybe that's no big deal! So I Googled it ... and the first two entries warn me that pure and concentrated coolant will actually overheat the car. Fuck me.
I had to call The Mechanic Around The Corner. Couldn't go anywhere else because, hey, what if the car overheats? They couldn't get me in right away, but I could come in in the afternoon, just before I go to work. If it they can pull it off, it sounds perfect.
But in the meantime I have to scramble. What I thought I would be doing in my car I would instead be doing in my parents' minivan, and I'd have to do it with about one fewer hour available because I needed to get home to drive my car to the shop. Yet I was undaunted. I had several hours to kill and I wanted to see if I still could do all the things I wanted to do. And besides, I had the minivan that has a new water pump, timing belt, motor mount and brakes. It should drive me anywhere and everywhere I wanted to go. If it didn't, The Mechanic Around The Corner has some things to answer to.
And you know what? The minivan held up. Drove it down a side street to get it washed, then drove it downtown, then down to the Mall Of America, then back up to Roseville to drop off the dry cleaning, then I filled it up with gas (instead of my car, which was my intention) before going home and immediately taking the car I inadvertently poisoned to get it flushed out of its body. I felt the key after I parked it; it was hot, indicating the inside was getting real hot. But the thermometer never went above what it was supposed to be, thank Buddha.
Now this is where I tell you all the plans that went awry. Went downtown, but my shoeshiner wasn't there. Then I went to the Megamall Hooters, but that babe waitress, who says she works Monday afternoons, wasn't there. I ate there anyway because I had a buy-ten-boneless, get-ten-boneless free coupon off of the calendar. But honestly, if I had known beforehand neither of them would be there, I wouldn't have bothered to go. Would've saved me some time.
And worst of all, when I walked down to The Mechanic Around The Corner to drive off with my flushed car, I was told they hadn't gotten around to it. They could get it done by the end of business day, but I'm working second shift all week, so I could pick it up in the morning -- or the afternoon, if I am sleeping in.
Just because they didn't get my car serviced when they said they would (the manager told me a couple of her mechanics called in sick and they got a ton of tow-ins last minute ... ?), I was given a loaner to take to work. I had used one of their loaners before, and I realized late in my use of the car for the day that there was a strategically-placed strip of black tape on the dashboard. If you looked around the piece of tape, you would see that the check engine light was on. So, the mechanics just put that tape on in that spot so people using it wouldn't freak the hell out. Actually, that's kind of genius.
There wasn't that on this loaner. But I got pretty much everything else. First thing I noticed was that, when I opened the door and instinctively knocked the side of my boot against the bottom railing of the front door to loosen the snow off of my Doc's, the railing shook. (I noticed later that the passenger side had no railing. All it had was rust.) The car looked dirty. Smelled too, but with an overpowering fragrance that makes you think it is overpowering because it's supposed to mask the nasty-ass scent that's there for real. I was given two keys; apparently, one is to open the door and the other is to turn the engine on. All night I was mixing the two. Oh, and when you use the key to open the door, you have to turn it counter-clockwise. Usually it's clockwise, am I right? Finally, and this is the worst, the windshield wipers don't retract to its position at the bottom of the windshield. Instead, if you stop the wiper feature, it stops at the other end of its pattern -- with the left one right up against the left side of the windshield, and the right one right in my line of sight. I tried driving it with it going on intermittently because then the wipers spend most of their time at the bottom of the windshield and out of my way. But there was no rain, and so the wipers would make these louder and louder grinding noises to the point where I just preferred to shut it off and cock my head to the left so as not to see the windshield right in my face.
And yet it got me where I wanted it to take me: To work, then some late-night grocery shopping at a 24-hour Cub Foods, then home. It had trouble getting up the driveway when even the minivan didn't have an issue; I'm guessing the loaner has balding tires. Can I complain about the car I got? Well, I drove pass The Mechanic Around The Corner and saw that unlike the minivan, which they kept locked up in one of their bays, my car is outside, waiting for it to be broken into. If someone messes with my car, then yeah, even though it has nothing to do with the loaner vehicle I have, I would complain. My car gets effed up because you couldn't bleepin' flush the coolant in time?
Then again, I could have avoided all of this crap if I didn't pour the wrong damn antifreeze into my car.
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