My car makes me sin
Unlike the celebrated Marley, PontiAnn was not dead to begin with. There was no question. It was last week, maybe Tuesday, [editor's note: it was actually much longer ago. I have a bad habit of starting these posts and leaving them unfinished] and I was driving my 33 1/3-mile commute, weaving into and out of the cloudy hills surrounding our national interstate system's two hundred and eightieth highway, and the only hint of coming menace that I noticed was that the fuel gauge was running on the low side.
This was not unusual, nor was it a problem -- I might not have had enough petrol to get back home, but there is a no-name gas station two blocks from the office in Daly City, which, though the numbers on the sign out front rarely match those on the actual pump, provides plentiful petrol at the people's price. What struck me as unusual at this pit stop, the fillip of the fill-up, as it were, was the manner in which, upon re-entering my car, jotting down the miles traveled, the gallons purchased, the legal tender extracted, and cetera, I turned the key to the "start" position and the car failed entirely to perform that simple task. It was as if, instead of "start", I had turned the key to "do nothing for a while, then make sickly whirring noises."
I debated asking for a jump from a passer-by. I had cables, but then, I also had AAA, and supposed as well that the battery dying abruptly in this way may signal deeper automotive distress than a mere loss of charge. When the Big Yellow Truck arrived, therefore, I voiced these concerns and was dully told not to worry about it too much, given a jump, and instructed to drive around for a bit, which I did before heading the two blocks to work.
My office is conveniently situated directly adjacent to a seven-story parking structure which was fairly full by the time I pulled into the gate. I parked as close to the ground as possible, which turned out to be the fourth story, and shut the car off. Just to see what would happen, I turned the starter again. Rrihw. Rrihw. Ah well, I'd just get a jump from a coworker at lunch and take the car to a shop.
Or so I thought. I found a nearby ignition shop online all right but the attempted jump that was to have gotten me there failed, as did a tap at the end of the day from my boss' pickup from which we had hoped to get a more wallopful kick-start. Oh well. I informed the parking lot security that they had not lost a parking slot they had gained a Bonneville and headed mass-transitward.
Arriving the next day on the Early Train, I put another call in to AAA, who assured me that another truck was on its way. Promptly after hanging up I put yet another call in to AAA, who assured me that the fact that I had just locked my keys in my car would prove but a minor inconvenience. And in fact it did.
What proved a much greater inconvenience, however, was the fact that, though I had mentioned the height requirements of the parking structure, the truck that arrived was two inches too, too large for the job. We decided that the best way to overcome this new challenge would be to push the car down. So, with the aid of the tow truck driver and a couple of very helpful chaps from building security, I spiraled my way, sans power breaks or steering, down between the rows and rows of sports cars and hybrid SUVs, most of which are worth, in my cursory estimation, more than my life.
Once we got to the ground floor the jump proved a trifle and I was on my way to the ignition shop, where I dropped off l'auto and made the two mile hike back to work. All set. The end of the workday saw me making the return journey to pick up the beast, which, apparently, had just needed a new battery all along. Unfortunately, new batteries cost money, and it was only after I had arrived at the shop that I learned of their policy of not extending credit to shady characters holding little plastic cards. I had left my checkbook at home that morning, so I was about to start the sad trek to the nearest train station when the kindly shop attendant told me that I could take the car and bring a check in the morning. I thanked him and was on my way.
When I arrived at home, I was meticulous in ensuring the working-orderness of everything. I tried the locks a couple times, tried turning off and turning on the car, made sure that the lights were working -- I wanted to make sure that, when I came back to the car in the morning, I wouldn't have any difficulties.
When I came back to the car in the morning, I had difficulties. Apparently, in my zeal of checking-over-ness, I had departed from my standard routine enough to have accidentally left the spare set of keys in the "on" position (though with the car turned off,) which had kept enough electricity flowing to completely drain the new battery.
This was at about seven o'clock in the morning, so I phoned up Mickey, who I know to be a truly good friend, the kind who would only laugh at me for about ten minutes before giving me a jump.
Allotting about 10 minutes for him to arrive, therefore, I was faced with a new problem. The jumper cables that I had fortuitously purchased before driving the car down to California had been sitting in the trunk ever since, and the manual lock on my trunk has been broken since I got the car. This is normally fine -- I can use the button to pop it open, but my car was made in an era when mechanically trivial things that could be made vastly more complicated and less reliable via the miracles of electricity were made vastly more complicated and less reliable via the miracles of electricity, and as we all know dead batteries are more or less electricity's Achilles' Heel.
Fortunately, the folks at Pontiac had the foresight to install a second access to the trunk, via the rear seats. This is not the kind of useful now-we-can-fit-all-sorts-of-things-in-this-boat fold-down-the-whole-seat access, however. Instead, those clever product designers seem to have been anticipating my very situation, for the aperture has approximately the cross sectional area of a man's shoulder.
After blindly fishing around for several minutes, I struck against something plastic and snaky, and soon I had extracted the goods. This was about when Mickey arrived, and, after a false start and a ten-minute let's-just-see-if-it-works charge from Mickey's 626, I was finally on my way to the Daly City again.
And have had no problems with it since.
Music of the moment:
I have recently been re-discovering a few outstanding albums.
Howe Gelb's 'Sno Angel Like You is a standout, a beautiful blend of slacker desert folk with (what else?) gospel choir harmonies. The great thing about this piece is the wholly unique feeling that one gets at all of its moments, a feeling that this strange music is simultaneously a meticulously crafted labor and a lazy shambles that will fall to pieces as soon as one of the tenuous guitar chords holding it together snaps.
Rich Mullins's The Jesus Demos is probably more familiar to you. These are a handful of demos that were recorded shortly before his death (R.M.'s, not... well, you know) and thematically centered on an exploration of Christ from divers perspectives. I generally steer clear of the genre that is variously called CCM or Christian Pop or just That Commercial Dreck, but this album is one that I have found myself singing the songs of again and again throughout the years in spite of myself.
Finally and most famously, The Talking Heads's Remain In Light recently catchyed its way into constant play on my office computer for about a week and a half, and I am someone who never listens to anything on repeat. The thing that I find entrancing about this album is its incredible texture -- each of the songs, the dance numbers at least, are a bubbling mess of energy that is somehow coherent, a spin of endless repetition that is somehow complex enough to hold the attention indefinitely. Add to that lyrics that have found a permanent place in the coveted land of my IM status quotes -- a tough arena to crack -- and you have yourself a classic. Which, in fact, it is.
This was not unusual, nor was it a problem -- I might not have had enough petrol to get back home, but there is a no-name gas station two blocks from the office in Daly City, which, though the numbers on the sign out front rarely match those on the actual pump, provides plentiful petrol at the people's price. What struck me as unusual at this pit stop, the fillip of the fill-up, as it were, was the manner in which, upon re-entering my car, jotting down the miles traveled, the gallons purchased, the legal tender extracted, and cetera, I turned the key to the "start" position and the car failed entirely to perform that simple task. It was as if, instead of "start", I had turned the key to "do nothing for a while, then make sickly whirring noises."
I debated asking for a jump from a passer-by. I had cables, but then, I also had AAA, and supposed as well that the battery dying abruptly in this way may signal deeper automotive distress than a mere loss of charge. When the Big Yellow Truck arrived, therefore, I voiced these concerns and was dully told not to worry about it too much, given a jump, and instructed to drive around for a bit, which I did before heading the two blocks to work.
My office is conveniently situated directly adjacent to a seven-story parking structure which was fairly full by the time I pulled into the gate. I parked as close to the ground as possible, which turned out to be the fourth story, and shut the car off. Just to see what would happen, I turned the starter again. Rrihw. Rrihw. Ah well, I'd just get a jump from a coworker at lunch and take the car to a shop.
Or so I thought. I found a nearby ignition shop online all right but the attempted jump that was to have gotten me there failed, as did a tap at the end of the day from my boss' pickup from which we had hoped to get a more wallopful kick-start. Oh well. I informed the parking lot security that they had not lost a parking slot they had gained a Bonneville and headed mass-transitward.
Arriving the next day on the Early Train, I put another call in to AAA, who assured me that another truck was on its way. Promptly after hanging up I put yet another call in to AAA, who assured me that the fact that I had just locked my keys in my car would prove but a minor inconvenience. And in fact it did.
What proved a much greater inconvenience, however, was the fact that, though I had mentioned the height requirements of the parking structure, the truck that arrived was two inches too, too large for the job. We decided that the best way to overcome this new challenge would be to push the car down. So, with the aid of the tow truck driver and a couple of very helpful chaps from building security, I spiraled my way, sans power breaks or steering, down between the rows and rows of sports cars and hybrid SUVs, most of which are worth, in my cursory estimation, more than my life.
Once we got to the ground floor the jump proved a trifle and I was on my way to the ignition shop, where I dropped off l'auto and made the two mile hike back to work. All set. The end of the workday saw me making the return journey to pick up the beast, which, apparently, had just needed a new battery all along. Unfortunately, new batteries cost money, and it was only after I had arrived at the shop that I learned of their policy of not extending credit to shady characters holding little plastic cards. I had left my checkbook at home that morning, so I was about to start the sad trek to the nearest train station when the kindly shop attendant told me that I could take the car and bring a check in the morning. I thanked him and was on my way.
When I arrived at home, I was meticulous in ensuring the working-orderness of everything. I tried the locks a couple times, tried turning off and turning on the car, made sure that the lights were working -- I wanted to make sure that, when I came back to the car in the morning, I wouldn't have any difficulties.
When I came back to the car in the morning, I had difficulties. Apparently, in my zeal of checking-over-ness, I had departed from my standard routine enough to have accidentally left the spare set of keys in the "on" position (though with the car turned off,) which had kept enough electricity flowing to completely drain the new battery.
This was at about seven o'clock in the morning, so I phoned up Mickey, who I know to be a truly good friend, the kind who would only laugh at me for about ten minutes before giving me a jump.
Allotting about 10 minutes for him to arrive, therefore, I was faced with a new problem. The jumper cables that I had fortuitously purchased before driving the car down to California had been sitting in the trunk ever since, and the manual lock on my trunk has been broken since I got the car. This is normally fine -- I can use the button to pop it open, but my car was made in an era when mechanically trivial things that could be made vastly more complicated and less reliable via the miracles of electricity were made vastly more complicated and less reliable via the miracles of electricity, and as we all know dead batteries are more or less electricity's Achilles' Heel.
Fortunately, the folks at Pontiac had the foresight to install a second access to the trunk, via the rear seats. This is not the kind of useful now-we-can-fit-all-sorts-of-things-in-this-boat fold-down-the-whole-seat access, however. Instead, those clever product designers seem to have been anticipating my very situation, for the aperture has approximately the cross sectional area of a man's shoulder.
After blindly fishing around for several minutes, I struck against something plastic and snaky, and soon I had extracted the goods. This was about when Mickey arrived, and, after a false start and a ten-minute let's-just-see-if-it-works charge from Mickey's 626, I was finally on my way to the Daly City again.
And have had no problems with it since.
Music of the moment:
I have recently been re-discovering a few outstanding albums.
Howe Gelb's 'Sno Angel Like You is a standout, a beautiful blend of slacker desert folk with (what else?) gospel choir harmonies. The great thing about this piece is the wholly unique feeling that one gets at all of its moments, a feeling that this strange music is simultaneously a meticulously crafted labor and a lazy shambles that will fall to pieces as soon as one of the tenuous guitar chords holding it together snaps.
Rich Mullins's The Jesus Demos is probably more familiar to you. These are a handful of demos that were recorded shortly before his death (R.M.'s, not... well, you know) and thematically centered on an exploration of Christ from divers perspectives. I generally steer clear of the genre that is variously called CCM or Christian Pop or just That Commercial Dreck, but this album is one that I have found myself singing the songs of again and again throughout the years in spite of myself.
Finally and most famously, The Talking Heads's Remain In Light recently catchyed its way into constant play on my office computer for about a week and a half, and I am someone who never listens to anything on repeat. The thing that I find entrancing about this album is its incredible texture -- each of the songs, the dance numbers at least, are a bubbling mess of energy that is somehow coherent, a spin of endless repetition that is somehow complex enough to hold the attention indefinitely. Add to that lyrics that have found a permanent place in the coveted land of my IM status quotes -- a tough arena to crack -- and you have yourself a classic. Which, in fact, it is.
