jennings rampage

A series of moments.

Last night driving home from Raleigh on I-40, I had the classic “oh, holy son of a whore” car moment when the radio quit on me, then the lights faded fast, then the “check engine” light came on, then I coasted off exit 276 with barely enough momentum to land in an Exxon parking lot. I cursed my brother for a moment, then my own bad luck and poor judgment for a few more moments, before getting a soda and a handful of quarters to make phone calls.

I called Katy, and bless her, she was out the door in a moment and on her way to me with her gold-colored AAA Plus card. She sped the whole way, I’m sure, and stayed with me while I called the motor club and waited for their tow truck to haul my remarkably unreliable car away. But it didn’t take a moment for my mood to improve.

The truck arrived, and in one of those awkward “should I question the guy with his name embroidered on his shirt?” moments, he asked if my car was front or rear wheel drive. I told him rear, since I’m absolutely certain of it, since those are the wheels that spin when I get my car stuck. But he was sure it was front, and crouched down and looked at my rear axle and confirmed it for himself. So the car was hoisted from its rear and towed to the garage. Hope that doesn’t break something else.

I had a pretty numb moment when the garage called to tell me it was my alternator and alternator diode that were useless, and it would cost about $330 to fix them. Two cars I’ve owned, two alternators failed. So I’m spending that money on a sudden repair, instead of the $250 estimate to have my A/C retrofitted and charged. Oh, and in the case of the turn signals, apparently there’s no power going to the fusebox, so that would take $50 an hour to diagnose before any repair could happen. ET3 Jennings, want to take a trip?

All that repair-authorizing got me pretty depressed about my finances, so I took a moment to sign up for one of those debt consolidation services, just to see what they have to offer. Kids, stay out of credit card debt in college. I want to buy a house.

After that, I had the classic “it’s good to be a Southerner” moment with the water company. My new neighbor-cum-landlady-surrogate apparently told the water company that she was living in my half of the duplex, so they cancelled my account and put the water bill in her name. I called them up this morning to get it straightened out, and once I identified myself and where I lived, the phone agent knew exactly who my neighbor is. “She’s from Maine or something, right?” “Massachusetts, I think.” And then we shared that pregnant pause-cum-low-mumble, and I was in. No worries with the water company, even though I had to put on my Brooklyn act with them a few months ago.