kNOw Thyself…

Not even a week after I got the Jag back, she decided she would just stop, die in the middle of the road. (Actually, fortuitously, a parking lot at 4am so no traffic or other cars. Thank God.) I didn’t even realize that the engine had died until I realized I had no steering or brakes. Literally could not steer or stop. Again, thankfully I was only going a few miles an hour and nobody else was around. Then she didn’t want to wake up. So I let her sit for a bit, and she started. I drove around the Walmart parking lot, and she died. Again. Again wouldn’t start. Again let her sit, and then she started, and the check engine light came back on. AGAIN. (GRRRRRRR!) So after rinsing and repeating this four times, I just did not remotely trust her to get me home, especially on a freeway with 65mph speed limit, at 4am, and that freeway has 20 foot concrete sound barriers on the side. If she died, I’d die. Slam. Crash. Into a wall.

So I used my last tow of the year from AAA and had her taken back to the service department. However, from there, she decided to be typically cat-like, and not cooperate. Not only did the check engine light turn off, so they had no information when they hooked up the diagnostic computer, but for the last week they’ve been driving her around, and she’s acting perfectly fine for them. Murphy’s Law: If something breaks, and you take it to a repairman, it will work perfectly. *sigh*

So they say that without any idea what’s causing it, and they can’t  know unless the check engine light comes on, there’s no way that they would even know where to begin to look. And they can’t just keep it there.

And so yet again, I am left with a car that I can’t trust, and can’t drive far or fast. I’ll be limited to back roads without ditches (which limits me to about… okay no roads… lol) and won’t be able to make my weekly trips up to South Bend, which while it is only about 30 minutes, would still be a death trap for me if this happened. Someone strong, a big guy, could easily keep it straight when the steering goes out, and brake, but I’m tiny, and I couldn’t even move the steering wheel at all, and had to stop in the parking lot with the emergency brake.

Oh, and then, I did a cancer walk last week, 40 degrees, 45mph winds, and there were so many people (about 4,000) that the ‘walk’ was more  like three steps, stop for 5 min, four steps, stop for 3 minutes… for hours. Needless to say, while I realize that cold and wind really can’t make you sick, and I must have picked up the bug from someone around me, I got quite ill, and still have a raging sinus infection and nasty cough.

Yeah. So. Bad week. Life sucks.