Well, at least I hope that's what the mechanic is going to do. If I am going to sink two grand into this -- oh yeah, that's how much he's charging me -- he might as well do it all. I am in no way happy about forking over that much goddamn money, don't get me wrong. But I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, and so I am thinking that the first time all those lights came on, he was hoping it was the easier, cheaper fix of an oil change to reestablish oil pressure. That didn't work, so it had to be the Armageddon scenario. Yeah, the worst case scenario turned out to be the problem (again assuming that the mechanic both knows what he's doing and is being honest with me), but I don't think I would want to come to a dealership with this same problem and be immediately told it'll cost, oh, $2,500 to replace everything when I would suspect that he's ripping me off.
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Meanwhile, I have been using my parents' minivan since Tuesday. On Saturday, while driving to the library, the doors unlocked themselves and I saw the door ajar light, which is red (meaning "stop fucking driving and pull the fuck over now") blink on. I tried locking the doors again, but pretty soon they unlocked again.
I could still drive, however, and while I am getting very, very paranoid that something else is going on with the van, I drove it to and from work with little incident. On the way home last night, however, as the door ajar light came back on, the door lights you see when the doors are open flickered on and off. I could still drive, but they were so fucking annoying that, when I got home, I not only opened the passenger door but the heretofore malfunctioning passenger-side slide door to make sure that indicator light didn't come on because they somehow had knocked ajar.
Big, big mistake. I closed the passenger passenger door just fine. But the passenger-side slide door kept closing and then automatically opening. I couldn't get that goddamn thing to shut for five or ten minutes, and with the cold and with how my fucking day was going, it felt like I was trying to shut that door all night. I was freaking the fuck out. I cannot leave that door open; not only could someone just go in and try to hotwire the van, the door lights automatically come on when they're open, and if they stay on because the door is open all night, the battery will burn out.
I don't know how it happened, but I finally got the fucking door to close for good. Maybe it needed warming up, in which case keeping that door closed for good will be a tad easier. But that slide door has become a more important issue for me than the fact that the doors now do not stay locked. If the less cold temperatures don't alleviate that problem -- and I'm thinking that the rough ride knocked some wires loose -- then I don't know what the hell to do. In the meantime, I've been keeping an eye outside on the van to make sure the lights inside stay off. It would just be my luck right now that a gust of wind or a final relinquishing of a lock pushes that goddamn slide door open.
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I thought it was more than a luxury for me to be able to use two cars. I hold the ability to move around town to be sacred, and so I wouldn't miss a step if one car needs to be serviced because I would have the other car. But the 1-2 punch I suffered yesterday was my nightmare come true: That both of my cars would be broken at the same goddamn time. One of them will be fixed next week -- when, who knows? And now the doors of the backup vehicle may just pop open on the highway.
Tonight (meaning Wednesday evening) I reserved a rental car from the place just down the block for two days. Even though I will be blowing a fucking hole in my checking account, I have been invited to not one but two stripper parties, today and tomorrow, and because my life has been so shitty lately, I am going to go to both and have fun, money be damned. I wanted to make sure I was able to drive to both parties, and that's why I got the rental. But I think there's something more important to me than that: With me being in control of two cars that don't work properly, I really, really want the feeling of being in a car that works just fine. I don't want to look down and have my heart skip a beat because I see an amber indicator light go on. I don't want to be frightened as hell that the slide door comes open while I'm driving 65 miles per hour (and by the way, that happened while I was driving the minivan either to or from the airport one night many years ago; that goddamn door slipped open, there was a huge buzzing noise as it stayed open, and I was hoping like crazy that I could keep it and myself together until I got home, which I did, thank Buddha). I want a new car, basically, and I am shelling out $230 for that new car feel for 48 hours.
On Saturday, after I return the rental, I will hopefully be able to use the van to go out to the gym to exercise. I can live with the doors unlocking themselves on the road; they lock and stay lock (at least I think) once I turn the engine off. But if any door comes open, I will have no choice but to rent a car again. Shit, I might have to if I'm not going to get my car back until Wednesday or Thursday.
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Yesterday/Wednesday was a bad day. A really bad day. I am stressed and overwhelmed and tired and scared. I want this nightmare to end.
I should look at the driveway to see if the minivan door is staying closed.
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