Monday, October 24, 2011

Sometimes Our Car Tries to Kill Us and Other Stories

Anna and I have inherited a car this year! Yes, that sounds all good and dandy but it has really been a little ridiculous.... This one time, tonight, our car tried to kill us! However it does not start there, it started in August.

First, our car looks like this:
So now you can picture us driving our 1990 (older than me!) white Dodge Caravan around. And yes, it doesn't have a back door on the driver's side, we're that cool.

Back in August, we were driving down to South Jordan to go to Johnny Carino's. Anna usually drives on the freeway because it makes me antsy and I never want to go 60 or the 70 mph that most people usually go, I would go 45 all the time if I could.

We made it from Provo all the way to Ikea, and we were getting off of the freeway. The car was perfect on the freeway, but as we got off and were at a stop light we felt it shaking a little. This was also when the car was named. I was sitting there thinking she (yes she was already a girl) needed a name, and that she was super old and shaking but still holding out, so I decided that the car should be named Minerva, after Professor McGonagall of course. Simultaneously, I mentioned to Anna that I had named her and the car would not speed up after the stop light. We yelled a little, and quickly turned off the engine which luckily seemed to work.

The same technique followed each stop light, we would freak out, turn off the engine and the go again. It was kind of ridiculous, it happened over and over for like 4 or 5 lights. There was once in there where we managed to make it to the next light without the car being restarted but it kept going on like that. Eventually we pulled into the Target parking lot and were picked up by our grandparents so we could go to dinner. It stayed in the lot during dinner, and then seemed to work after. The diagnosis? It had accidentally gone into 2nd gear and started overheating, however we had no idea since the temperature gauge is broken!

We got our car back the next week with nothing wrong. The third Monday we went to a member of our bishopric's house for FHE. Anna drove our van, and everything was great! It worked the 30 minutes there and back, no problem. The problem was the Friday I tried to take the car out, it was completely dead. Anna had specifically checked to make sure the lights were off and so we're still puzzled about that one. They are pretty obvious when they're on, especially since we got back at like 9:30 or 10. Luckily our FHE dad was able to jump start the car and we could drive it like normal.

Two weeks ago, we were driving to different friend's houses when we noticed that one of the tires was losing air. That meant we had to go get it looked at. Luckily it was just a nuisance and not a huge problem, we were able to drive it to a tire shop and get it looked at in about half an hour.

This month our car had to go in for inspection. It went in this past Thursday and apparently there were a few things that had to be fixed before it could pass. There was a gas leak in our car, and we could tell, it smelled very bad when we drove more than 5 miles. The mechanics said that if the leak was not fixed our car could have caught on fire, which would have been an interesting experience to say the least.

Now this is the good part. Today we went to the recycling maze for FHE. It was pretty fun, a huge maze that we went through a couple times, then we decided to go through it as a race and then eventually as freeze tag. It was lots of fun but sadly we had to leave.

One of the cars (er couple in a truck...) left their other passenger (how awkward to be the third wheel!!) so we had an extra person in the car. Kaitlyn decided it was a good idea to sit in the trunk as her seat. The first time it was shut, it hit her head because there is only like 6 inches with the seat pushed back as far as it was.

After that everyone settled into the car, and I started the car, even though I didn't really want to drive. I pulled the car out of park, and instead of the breaks working, they didn't. We started rolling backwards, and luckily it was really slowly and everyone started freaking out. A few people yelled at me, telling me to brake, but then they realized I had my foot on the brake pedal.

I was kind of freaked out but also I was just trying to be calm and assess the situation. I wasn't sure what I should do but I knew we were in a parking lot with few people around so not much could happen. We were pretty close to the curb so I just waited for us to hit it and stop. It was actually really interesting, we were going like 7 mph but everyone was yelling and scared for their lives.

There was another car that was about to leave but they started watching as we were rolling down the parking lot. Everyone was so freaked out for us, and our van. We restarted the car a couple times and the brakes worked each time so it must have just been that time. They figured we were safe getting home, and that's when I told them that the car was inspected last week. Everyone kind of laughed and a couple people said something about having little faith in our government with cars like Minerva on the road.

Before we left, I forced Kaitlyn out of the trunk. If we were going to crash it would probably be bad in the trunk, she would hit her head because of the little space. At least she can now cross that off her bucket list, she has definitely always wanted to be in a car with broken brakes while sitting in the trunk....

We left the parking lot, and that's when more weird stuff happened. I got a phone call from a food science friend, and everyone was yelling and stuff and then Anna was backseat driving. So it was a great combination, Anna was yelling at me so I was yelling at her, and then other people were yelling to be louder than us.

When we tried to get into the Brittany parking lot it was full, both the lot behind our building and the one across the street. We had to do a 7 million point turn at the other Brittany because there were a ton of cars, plus I could not see anything because I was driving an excessively full van with already dark tinted windows. This is when yelling about my driving started. We left the lot and then various passengers in the car were yelling to tell us where to park, and so I got confused. There is a bright blue house on our street that people told me to park at, except I thought they meant in front of the front door but they meant the side door, so I went the wrong direction and we had to do a u-turn in the middle of the street.

We decided Kaitlyn and Hannah had to be dropped off so we didn't even use the parking spot. We went to campus and to their apartment, and found a spot on the street in front of the Brittany. We have had some really interesting times with our car in the short 2 months we have had her. Anna thinks she will last awhile longer, but I am under the impression that she could go down in smoke at any moment. We'll see who is right in the next year I'm sure.

1 comment:

  1. That picture makes the car look nicer than it is, all the paint is peeling off! Every time you say mean things about a car, some car somewhere drops down dead! Clap to keep Minerva alive!

    ReplyDelete