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I do not like green snow or ham. I do not like them. SAM I am.
Dear Diary,
Sometimes I feel like I just have too much free time on my hands! And too many toes*! So today I set out to remedy that situation.
I gave tbone and Mr B------ a ride to school this morning, dear diary, and managed to get myself trapped in a snowdrift whilst trying to parallel park. They claimed I was "good enough" even though I was angled out into the street, but I tried pulling forward and backward and got nothing but tire-spinning from the process. I finally forced my riders to get out of the car and push, at which point they made up some story about green liquid dripping from the front of my car in order to get out of pushing.
Well, okay, there really was green liquid. So I gave up, declaring it "good enough because if the radiator is leaking, I don't want to drive it anywhere, so as long as I'm getting towed, I might as well get towed out of this stupid snowdrift." We went to a pointless waste of time class, then I got lunch and called AAA around 11:30.
When I finally got through to the AAA "customer advocate" around noon, I explained my situation.
"Green snow is better than yellow snow!" he pointed out, "But you still shouldn't eat it." He told me that the towing company would be there at 1:00, so I killed an hour paying my tuition** and walking back to the car. I arrived a few minutes before 1, just in case he showed up early and I wasn't there.
I got into the car and sat there. I was afraid to start up a car leaking mysterious green stuff, so I just sat. I fiddled with things in my bag. I sat. I entered AAA's 800 number into my cell phone. I sat. I looked at my watch. I sat. I shivered. I sat. I pulled my scarf tighter around me. I sat. I considered taking off my shoes and pulling my feet underneath me to warm them up, but rejected that idea because the tow truck would show up any minute and I would need to have shoes on. I sat. I tried to figure out if I could still feel my toes or not. I sat. I rethought the shoe-removal idea, but decided that since more time had passed since the time I originally thought of it, I was that much closer to tow truck arrival-time.
Around 1:22, I called AAA again.
"The truck is on his way," the operator told me. "He's just dropping off another car."
"Um, do I have to be with my car for him to tow it?" I asked.
"Yes, you do. Are you in the car now?"
"Yes. I was hoping to go somewhere warm."
"Do you have somewhere you could go near your car?"
"No... it's a residential area."
"Well I'll put a rush on this then. They should take this into account, because it's cold out there."
"Thank you."
So they sped that tow truck up so fast that it got there... half an hour later. But you know what? It was worth the wait, and I blamed no one because he was finally there and everything was going to be all better now.
I told him my problem and he pointed out that it was going to be more expensive if he had to tow me out of the snowdrift, so maybe I should try to get out on my own. I explained that I'd tried to get out, but just spun my wheels for a while. I also explained that I had been afraid to start up the car with greenness dripping out, so I hadn't tried since that morning. He said it shouldn't be a problem unless it looked like the car was overheating.
I gave escape a shot with him watching, but just spun some more. He got in and got a rocking backward-forward motion going and managed to back out of the space. This I'll-help-you-do-it-yourself-to-save-money approach reminded me of the time I went to the doctor and he helped me take my contact fragment out. It's nice when people help you avoid getting hosed for something simple, but it also makes you feel kind of stupid.
The tow truck man looked at the green puddle under the car. He looked under the hood. He looked at the snow in the wheel-well of the car. His diagnosis: Green snow. That I had parked on top of.
Ahem.
So at this point, it was about 2:30 pm (three hours after my phone call began) and I had no feeling in my toes... ALL FOR SOME GREEN SNOW.
SNOW.
GREEN.
No point to calling a tow truck.
Three hours.
I am so close, dear diary! Just a little more work at it and I will eliminate all of those pesky toes and free time with pointless time- and body-heat-wasters!
–––––
* I figuratively, rather than literally, have too many toes on my hands. I think one would be too many toes to literally have on my hands.
** The University likes it if I do that from time to time. I almost forgot.
srah - Thursday, 29 January 2004 - 6:47 PM
Tags: stories
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Comments (11)
Justin - January 29, 2004 - 10:31 PM - ℓ
I once had green fluid (called "antifreeze" by the auto savvy) leaking INTO my car. Like, in the floorboard. Like, all over my feet while I was trying to drive. And it stunk real bad.
Eventually, I found out that it was my heating coil, which had died a long and painful death, and I had to replace it. Of course, a heating coil is like the most expensive thing EVER to fix on a car. And of course, I have the most difficult car in the history of cars to work on when it comes to this particular problem.
I'm buyin' a moped.
Bob - January 29, 2004 - 11:41 PM - ℓ
Your contact lens story brought back warm, happy feelings from high school when my hard contact lens was shattered in my eye by a sugar cube whipped at me. A Q-tip in the eye to swab out contact fragment was bad, but my dad making me go to school, and baseball practice, with a huge gauze and tape monster all over half my face was much worse...
eston - January 30, 2004 - 9:05 AM - ℓ
Okay, I hate to get technical, but...
Yes that green fluid is antifreeze/coolant, and yes, if you don't have a leak in the coolant system somewhere (vacuum lines, radiator, radiator "catch can", main engine coolant hoses), then your radiator was just overfilled to the point of where the catch can was also full. As far as I'm concerned, I've never seen this just "happen". Last time someone's catch can was full of coolant was when their head gasket popped. Oops.
Hey, maybe another car parked there first and they had a coolant leak. In this cold, your car's not going to overheat.
oh srah! I'm so sorry to hear! oh dear. But, Mr. B------ will confirm that your AAA guy is a moron. We SAW green fluid dripping from your car.
Lock says to tell you about his taurus that he drove. Lock used to drive a mint green taurus named "marge." Marge was a sexy beast, yes she was. She had been totaled in an accident, but lock's family had gotten her fixed up (even though her value was completely worthless). Oh--and she had a hula lady that danced on her dashboard....Anyway, Lock had a number of adventures with marge in college.
Once, we got into marge and something just REEKED. I mean reeked, seriously. We thought something crawled in there and died. Lock looked around and tried to see if something crawled in there and died, but no such luck. So we lived with the nasty smell until it eventually went away (or until whatever died rotted away).
Then, Marge had a little radiator fluid problem...as lock said, "she wasn't potty trained, she was always taking a leak everywhere" Sort of like my dog when I take her for a walk (she's a girl, for goodness sake).
Anyhoo, back to the story. Marge's radiator fluid was leaking lots and lots and lock eventually bought radiator fluid and kept filling it up (it kept emptying out). Eventually he got it fixed.
Finally, Marge had this last problem where her back wheel wouldn't turn. I mean wouldn't turn! It was like a shopping cart--that one crappy wheel that won't go anywhere. Marge the shopping cart.
Anyway, marge is now gone and Lock has Steve.
Sorry for wasting more of your time for my pointless story.