No Wheels

I remember having a record--a 45 (does anyone remember what we listened to before CD's?) called "No Wheels" when I was young, probably about 10 or 12. I don't remember much about the record, except the chorus was this "No Wheels" over and over and over again.

Well, recently we experienced this very thing--we had "No Wheels."

Last Saturday (Sept. 2nd) was our 8 year old grandson's baptism day. They live some 90 miles away at the coast, which is about a 1 hr. 45 minute drive for us. We were scheduled to leave home about 11:30, which should have given us plenty of time to get there. We actually left about 11:45, but we still should have arrived on time.

Except for one small problem...................

We were about 15 minutes away from home, everyone having a good time, traffic was a little on the heavy side because of Labor Day weekend. "Everyone" included our #2 dd and her 2 children, my husband & I, and our twin dds. As we were driving along in what we thought was a well-running car, DH said, "We have no power, something's wrong!" Well, those words are NOT music to anyone's ears, believe me. To make a long story short, we weren't going anywhere anytime soon. The twins called their friend on the cell phone, and she and her brother came to our rescue and got us back home. Once home, DH called a tow company and within the hour my beloved Pontiac Transport minivan was back home in our driveway, complete with a $97 towing bill. To make matters worse, the car started!

Not trusting it, of course, we piled into #2 DD's Sable station wagon--a tight fit for 7 people and one of the twins had to sit in the back (there is a seat back there complete with seat belts). We missed the baptism and were late for dinner, but we did spend a couple of hours there with the family.

Sunday we made do with Don's pickup to get to church and back. Monday was Labor Day, we didn't have any big plans but dh & I did a little window shopping and had dinner out. I told him I didn't need a car on Tuesday, but would on Weds & Thurs. We had plans to borrow my brother's extra car, and picking it up Tuesday evening.

DH's pickup had other plans.

I was working away at my computer Tuesday morning around 10:30 when the phone rang. It was dh. He was working in a town about 45 miles away, and he called to let me know that his pickup wouldn't start, would I please rent a car and come rescue him. Fortunately we're within walking distance of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, so I called them, put on my sneakers (had sandals on before) and walked the 4 or so blocks over to process the rental. I was on the the road about half an hour later, up the Gorge to North Bonneville. Again to make a long story short, picked up dh and we continued on to Stevenson, a bigger town than North Bonneville, complete with a NAPA dealer. He knew he needed a new battery by that time, so it should have been a simple matter to buy the battery, pop it in and be back to work. Chalk up another $45 for the battery, $199 a week or $40 a day for the car rental.

Nope, not so simple!

After jiggling wires and fiddling with his gear shift, it finally started, and we were on our way back home again. Lost: A day's pay!

After struggling off & on all week with it, trying different things, he finally fixed it Saturday morning. Battery cables seem to be the problem, at least it started every time for the rest of that day. Will it start again today? Or tomorrow? Only time will tell.

We took my car out to the shop Weds. evening. It started fine, but only ran about 10 or 15 minutes till it died. Left it at the side of the road, went back home. By that time the "working" twin dd was home, we used her car and went back to mine, with a tow rope. My car started again, but by this time dh had figured out it was only good for about 10 minutes at a time, so he took off and went as fast as he dared go. Made to within about 4 or 5 blocks of the shop. We put the tow rope on it and drug it the rest of the way. Cost? Up to $400, as that's what dh authorized the shop guy to do.

It's not back yet, hopefully Monday or Tuesday (the shop guy went out of town Friday thru Sunday). My rental car goes back either Monday or Tuesday (gotta call and see which), and hopefully the pickup will start and be fine. We'll be borrowing my brother's car Monday night if mine isn't ready on Monday.

No Wheels! No Fun! Expensive, too!