THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 6, 1995 TAG: 9510050196
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Cars are like cats. You don't own them, they own you.
If you don't believe that, stop and think for a moment.
When a battery decides to take a snooze 20 minutes before you're due at an important meeting, who's in control of the situation?
Not you, certainly.
When a tire blows on the interstate during a rush hour rain storm, who's inconvenienced? I suspect that your basic two tons of steel, plastic and vinyl is perfectly happy to sit beside the road as long lines of traffic back up.
Your average driver is not.
When a car's computer has a seizure and every dashboard light known to man, woman or the entire Goodwrench family decides to flash at the same time, your basic Blazer yells ``Hey man, great light show! Bring on the dancing girls!''
Your basic driver, on the other hand, puts her head on the steering wheel and weeps.
Cars have a way of driving you crazy like that.
A week ago Saturday night Bill and I stopped by the neighborhood 7-Eleven on our way home from an evening wedding.
We pulled in, turned off the engine and went into the store. We came out, turned the key and got only that faint whir-r-r that all experienced drivers dread.
The fact that it was raining didn't make the situation any better. ``We can call AAA,'' Bill said, ``and wait. Or I can walk home and get the truck.''
We opted for the truck route, figuring it would be shorter. I watched from the front seat of the car as Bill in suit, tie and good shoes, made his way through the puddles of three parking lots and into the churchyard beyond.
I followed his progress by watching the wobbles and bobbles of the giant yellow umbrella he was carrying.
In a few minutes he was back with the truck. We jump started the Mercury and headed for home.
The next day we laid out $60 for a new battery.
Along about Thursday, Bill surveyed my left front tire. ``Looks a little low,'' he said. It was. About 10 pounds low, to be exact. He examined it, couldn't find any obvious problems and added air. By the next day it was down five pounds.
That evening Bill took the car to a gas station to have it checked. They found one problem. A quarter inch slit on the sidewall.
They created another problem. In remounting the wheel, they stripped the bolt that holds the lug nut.
Early Saturday morning found Bill at a car dealership having the wheel assembly taken apart and the bolt replaced to the tune of a little over $30.
Late Saturday morning he was back where he got the battery the week before having all four tires, plus a spare with a large chunk of missing tread from an earlier mishap, replaced.
More than $450 worth of unexpected car repairs in a week is not at all pleasant.
We moaned and groaned over our car problems until we heard our friend Marie's tale of woe.
We went to visit her and her husband Lee on Sunday. Their GMC Jimmy sat in the driveway with a plastic tarp over it and a few pieces of glass from the rear window clinging tentatively to its frame.
The Jeep-like vehicle's spare tire swung loose in its rack on the tail gate. The tire's cover had a strange bark-encrusted smudge on it.
Lee explained what happened. It seems that Marie had unloaded groceries from the tail gate, then closed it and latched the spare.
She thought.
A few minutes later she left the house again, got to the place where their road meets the highway, heard an enormous crash and looked in the rearview mirror just in time to see the back window implode into millions of little pieces.
She didn't have a clue at first as to what had happened. Then she spotted the tree, the one with the major piece missing out of it. A piece that matched exactly the bark imprint on the tire cover.
Apparently the tire rack had not been completely latched. It swung free when she started to make her turn, hit the tree, bounced back with enough force to shatter the rear window and did somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 damage.
Funny, I thought to myself, how happy the Jimmy looked sitting there in the driveway, nestled under its tarp.
Smug, even, with a little grin between it headlights. Much like a Cheshire cat.
I looked over at my own car, sitting proudly on its four new tires next to the Jimmy Same smug grin, same look. by CNB