My life has been busy, and one thing after another, along with trying to pay attention, but not pay attention to everything else going on in the world. My anxiety and ADHD are at an all-time high.
The good news is that I haven’t logged into any of my stupid cell phone games in weeks! That had been my coping mechanism for the past few years. Don’t want to deal with thinking about anything? Log into a game and pretend none of it is happening. Unfortunately, everything is still there when you emerge from the game hours later with nothing accomplished.
What snapped me out of it? Music is the short answer. I can hyperfocus (get completely obsessed).
First, Brad Kyle from Front Row & Backstage messaged me to see if I was game for a round of Tune Tag for his newsletter! I’ve been reading these and loving them! One person starts with a song, and then the other one comes back with a song that has some kind of connection (tag) to the previous song. You have to figure out what that connection (tag) is and then come up with a song connected in some way to that one, and so on. This kept me busy researching songs and artists for about three days. (I will totally cross-post this on 5/6 when it comes out!)
I was also simultaneously spending time planning for Record Store Day at the end of that week. (I have a piece in progress about this, but here I am trying not to do too many pieces about music in a row.) So, I was full-on focused!
That week, I was also sitting around waiting to get my car fixed!
What follows is a typical story about how my life goes.
That last week of March, I wanted to put some focus on pulling together a book of pieces I had written to get something else published to have at a “Boozy Book Fair” that a local brewery is doing to highlight local authors and local independent book sellers. (Spoiler alert: that didn’t even come close to happening, so I will be there vending two published books. I mean it’s not like a third title would have made much of a difference).
As I was looking at the pieces and feedback I had received on them (at least two years ago!), I started reading this one about the time I had to borrow my mom’s car.
https://medium.com/@kristindemarr/when-you-live-on-the-edge-a-sense-of-humor-helps-e888fa213164?sk=cd446db8aa60ccd623abb37aa9306314 (It’s a “friend link,” so you can read it if you don’t have a Medium account).
Which made me think about how last year, at this time, I was once again dealing with big car issues and ended up sitting in a dealership for twelve hours between three days with one of my best friends, who ended up co-signing for me so that I could get into a decent car without having to double my current car payment. The stakes were a bit higher this time as I was going to be needing a car that could make highway trips back and forth to Ames, which is a three-hour drive from the Quad Cities.
As I read the piece, I was also thinking about how grateful I was to have a nicer, newer car that I wouldn’t have to worry so much about. I hadn’t reflected on this in a while. It’s one area in my life that has seen significant improvement. Not having to worry about car issues was a big load off my plate.
The very next morning.
My youngest boy farted at the high school drop off. I immediately started rolling both the driver’s window and the driver’s side passenger window down at the same time. Just about the time the driver’s side was 3/4 of the way down and the passenger’s window was 1/2 way down, they stopped, and a chain of events was triggered in my car.
All the alarms started going off.
“Error: Driver Door Contact Switch”
“Fault: Electronic Parking Brake”
“Attention: The Engine is Running”
“Error: Start/Stop”
The windows wouldn’t roll back up.
The two high school kids got out, and I prayed my car would make it over to the Junior High.
Every time I stopped, all the alarms went off.
When I got to the junior high school, I turned the car off and prayed that it would come back on and be fine.
It did come back on, but it wasn’t fine. The windows still wouldn’t roll up, and all the alarms went off again. At every stop sign and red light on the way home.
I had been planning to go straight to Walmart after dropping the kids at school. But with my windows not rolling up, I wasn’t about to have anyone steal my Mario Kart Toad.
Or anything in my car that had personal information on it. Or my garage door opener.
So, I went home, let the dogs out, took some deep breaths, and hoped that I was in a nightmare and my car would be magically fine and reset itself after sitting for 20 minutes.
Nope.
When I got back downstairs and out of the garage, I could hear my radio still playing. All of my accessories were still on.
I got in and headed straight for the dealership. Aside from still having a year or two under the manufacturer's warranty, I had some kind of warranty through the dealership.
When I got there, I figured out that I had to hit the lock button to shut off all the accessories. But the driver’s door remained unlocked.
They said they couldn’t look at it until 1:30. Then she said maybe they could look at it at 11:00. I took the 1:30 because I have a standing lunch date between 11-12 every Wednesday with a good friend who is joining me on the Local Uncommon Stout Tour.
What is the Local Uncommon Stout Tour?
Beer goals!
One of the oldest breweries in town does an annual thing where, for 10 weeks, they use 10 local coffee shops to make small batches of their Uncommon (coffee) Stout. Every Wednesday, for ten weeks, they release the local uncommon stouts. If you go every Wednesday and get your card punched, you get a free T-shirt. Yes, I will drink 10 beers for a T-shirt!
The T-shirts feature their Uncommon Stout mascot on famous album covers. Last year was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors. This year is The Beatles’ Abbey Road.
Like I said, there are beer goals here!
So, I drove my car, windows down, alarms going off, across the river to meet my friend and drink a local Uncommon Stout! I did park on the street in front of the brewery versus parking in the back lot. Because I was not about to lose Toad. The back lot is a bit sketch.
That reminded me of the Local Uncommon Tour last year, and how I drove me and my oldest over to the brewery for dinner a few days before I traded in my car (it was Week 5 of the Local Uncommon Tour!) and I said, “OK. If my car starts smoking, I’m going to pull it over, and you will need to get out as fast as you can, and get as far away from the car as you can.” In all fairness, the mechanic said it probably wouldn’t catch fire, but he wouldn’t rule it out either. So, for a week, I felt like I was driving a time bomb, and I was thankful for every trip that didn’t result in my car catching fire and blowing up. But, I had beer goals! And they also have $8 burger baskets on Wednesdays, and I had not gone to the grocery store.
So, this time, at least my car wasn’t going to potentially catch fire.
When I took it to the dealership after lunch, they took forever and came back to explain to me that it was a part that was under a recall and part of a class action lawsuit with VW. They could replace the part, but VW had not yet released a part with a fix for the issue. But, they would replace it for free when they did. The part just so happens to be made in Ukraine.
The other piece was that basically, I had no power to the driver’s door, and they couldn’t get the windows up. I could either 1) wait for 10 minutes for them to put plastic on my windows, or 2) wait an hour for them to take my door apart to get the windows up. I had to leave to pick up kids from school in 20 minutes.
In hindsight, I should have picked the kids up and come back so they could take the door apart to get the windows up, because I could NOT see out of the plastic.
I drove around like this for THREE WEEKS. (Also, with all of the alarms going off at every stop).
I texted and called, but eventually had to walk in to see when they were going to be able to get the part! When I went in, they said that actually the part for my model had not been recalled, and the warranty didn’t cover electrical… so, I was going to have to pay $485 to get it fixed.
Fine. Just get it fixed so I can see out of my window and not die. It’s been three weeks.
I took it to the shop last week on Thursday at 11:00 am. They said it would take an hour and a half. I had my sister pick me up, and I sat outside smoking and drinking her Mike’s Hard Lemonade and researching songs and bands and making notes and counts from social media posts from two of the local record stores for Record Store Day.
At 2:13, I texted the dealership because I needed to leave at 2:40 to pick up my kids from school. I borrowed my sister’s car, and got a text around 3:00 from the dealership.
Yes, it took me 20 minutes to respond. Because WTF??? I cried. I didn’t even know what to say. I didn’t want to call because I’m no good in those situations. And I needed a witness, or someone with a calm, rational mind to help me, so I didn’t say, “Yes, I will pay you $1000 more dollars that I don’t have for you to not fix my car again.”
I dropped my kids at home and told my sister she had to come into the service department with me because I wasn’t paying $480, and was absolutely leaving with my car. Like what happens in this situation if you refuse to pay?
Love my sister. She very purposely changed out of her “Off Point Pub” hoodie into a local carpenters’ union hoodie because she meant business!
I had on a Wake Brewing hoodie (that I’ve worn to parent teacher conferences and found teachers who love their beer!)
It was all for naught, though, because when we got there, they had already set me up with an appointment the next day at the local VW dealership, and they told me the extended warranty would cover it, and they didn’t try to charge me anything. So, I didn’t have to pull my sister on them after all.
The next day, I took my car into the VW dealership and had no idea what to expect. I just knew that if I had to leave with dealer plastic on my window, I was definitely just going to die. And I didn’t even care at this point.
My sister met me, and I believe I was done with the Tune Tag, but, I was busy strategizing with a friend for Record Store Day while I sat outside smoking and drinking her Mike’s Hard Lemonade. OK, so I wasn’t ready to die before Record Store Day. But, I absolutely wanted my car fixed.
An hour later, VW called to let me know my car was ready. It was fixed!
Not only was it fixed, but they dusted the dash, vacuumed the floors, and ran it through a car wash!
When I got home and looked at the paperwork… it was a fuse! A blown fuse! And the dealership I bought the car from paid for it.
Seriously, I considered checking the fuses. But, I would have had to look in the owner’s manual to see where the fuse box was, and I didn’t know if I would be able to tell if a fuse was blown. Plus, it was still under warranty, and it was easier to drive it to where I got it than to grab the manual out of the glove box.
And with all of the alarms going off, I thought it had to be something bigger than a fuse. But, I’m not a mechanic.
I absolutely blame my boy farting for the whole ordeal.
The next time he farts in the car, I will just roll down one window at a time.
You don’t need me to tell you this, but you’re a hell of a great writer. Like, wow. Needs to be said.
I felt for you, I laughed, I was in despair, I was hooked at every cliff hanger, and I thoroughly enjoyed every single word.
So glad the story had a happy ending!
Wow!! That is an ordeal! Happy it got resolved but damn! I guess that's one of the reasons I don't own a car and live in a mostly walkable city. Love the Tune Tag! Never heard of it. Also your sister sounds hysterical!