 My car died. It didn’t just stop. It bled to death, a pool of oil tracing its way across the driveway and into the grass. I had just driven in from shipping orders and Mr. Fix-It asked me if I had checked the oil lately. Are you kidding? Am I my auto’s keeper? Ok, so I had to admit that I had not. The car needed to cool down after its trip and so it was forgotten for a couple of hours. It was then that Mr. Fix-It came in, rather stern-looking, and informed me that there was no oil in my car. Oh no!! How could that be?!! Like most women, I feigned horror, not really sure that having no oil in the car was all that big a deal. I followed Mr. Fix-It to my vehicle and watched as he poured 5 quarts of 10W-40, through a funnel, into the oil reservoir, while schooling me of its importance. He checked the dipstick and still there was no oil. What? But under the car, there was a bucketful!!  Mr. Fix-It declared my lovely, champagne-colored Toyota Camry a dead duck. Of course, most cars become dead ducks after they have been driven for 210,000 miles, but I had been sure that this one would live to another 100,000!! As it was, I no longer had wheels. That’s bad. Trust me. Mr. Fix-It drives a big, honkin’ Ford and I have always had the small cars in which to tootle around and save gas. But now, I was seriously short on tootlin’ machinery and didn’t need gas! I think that I have written about the Afghanistan truck before. It is a small Toyota pickup exactly like the ones used by the Taliban to bomb buildings. Ours looked like one of those trucks AFTER the bombing. We got it for $100 and Mr. Fix-It made it work like new. However, the body looked like someone had hit a tree with the front hood and then had backed into another one with the rear bumper. Two opposing ‘V’s’ would be an apt description. And somewhere in there, a bomb may have crunched the tailgate. I had driven that truck on occasion as have most of the children when they were in-between vehicles, but the Afghanistan truck was finally given to our son-in-law for him to use with his projects.  In its place, we received a little 1988 Nissan truck, with a camper on the back and only 73,000 miles on it, from my mom and dad when they moved from Tennessee to their retirement community. It has a 5-speed manual transmission and is the very basic package that includes no radio, no cup-holders and no place to hang your cell-phone. Oh wait. Did they even HAVE cell phones in 1988?? But it has the most comfortable seats and shifting is pretty smooth….that is….unless you are in downtown Oklahoma City or Edmond and you are me. Oh my. Talk about stress and a headache. Today, I was the little ol’ lady with the gray hair, holding up traffic as I attempted to pull forward at a green light, and killed the engine twice until I finally figured out I was in third gear. Traffic does that to me. My mind turns to mush. And other drivers’ hands turn to shaking fists. And so, Mr. Fix-It and I have embarked on the fun and enlightening pastime of car shopping. Yes, that is an activity that is sure to leave you with the immediate need to hit the shower and remove the slime that has been sent your way by car salesmen. We even had the made-for-tv experience of the salesman seating us in his office, disappearing and then hauling in the “manager” to see if he could “get us into the car of our dreams.” I mean, how cliché is that? One dealer asked me what I do and I tried very hard to explain my business. He is still convinced that the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ helps you slice onions and cucumbers. Don’t ask me why. I gave up after his fiftieth interruption to correct me about its use. Yep, cars are a necessity but car dealerships are not. It is with that realization that I have hit Craigslist. I will keep you posted on the outcome.  |
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