1948 chevy fleetline
got back from vegas yesterday morning. nice drive, though i hate waking up that early, but had a rental car to return by one o’clock.
briefly thought, i could briefly stop at one of a few shows on the way, in cucamonga, fontana, and places i would normally not get out to, but then thought better of it. the image of my better half on my shoulder saying, “no, kathy. you’ll never get back on time…” vs the devil on the other shoulder saying, “fuck it. work will pay for the additional hours overdue.” i didn’t, but wished i had anyway.
as it was, i stopped by the house and dropped off my bags, then had to go out and get some lunch for my mother-in-law. better half would have done it, but since his car doesn’t have a functioning air conditioner, except the roll-down kind, i thought i’d do him a favor. sort of felt like a hi and bye though.
brought the food back, and headed to drop off the car. got it back with about an hour to spare, so that part worked out fine. the guy there apologized again about calling me earlier in the week to search the car for the previous renter’s passport. turns out the guy had cleaned out a bag of trash when he dropped the car off. the other employee remembered seeing a bag in the trash can, which they checked, and found the passport after all that trouble. the guy was fortunate the trash hadn’t been picked up yet, and they overnighted to him, and they assume he was able to fly out, as he hadn’t called back.
then i called an uber to get a ride to the shop for my car. better half would have driven me, but i thought it was such a short distance from the rental place, it made no sense. took the drive about eight minutes to get there. watching the app, i knew he was hitting every red light on the way. he confirmed that was the case, and that his day was filled with red lights and closed freeway on-ramps that weren’t showing up on his phone. so my trip was a relatively easy one.
dropped me at the curb, and the guy i was supposed to deal with had the day off. they’d had my car all week, so the other guy basically said no charge, and had the car brought out. they even washed it, and had time to get the brake dust off the wheels. great. long overdue.
decided to drive to la habra to pick up some honeybaked ham for my mother-in-law. about ten minutes that direction, the check engine light came on again. fuck. called the shop back and was placed on eternal hold. got to the ham place, and finally hung up and got my order. figured i’d call again, and just start heading back to the shop while on hold.
finally got through to the same dipshit that gave me the car earlier and told him the light was back on. if they could just reaffirm that it was perfectly normal for it to come on for a period of time after a valve job, i’d be ok with that, but they don’t seem confident or competent enough to say that. i ask if i can again drop it off, and get a loaner car, as the other guy had offered, but this one said they didn’t have any. asked if the car was running ok, which it seemed to be. he asked if i could bring it in on monday or tuesday. i can’t, i have to have a car, i have to get to work and a doctor’s appointment, and at that point i gave up on being polite, and might have let some profanity hit his delicate ears.
so, monday, i’m going to drive it down to work, and if i get stuck on the freeway, will either have it towed all the way back or just take it to the closest shop AAA recommends and have them pay for the repair. fuckers. maybe i’ll head to my mom’s later, and take the surface streets. longer drive, but if i break down, less stressful for me.
an unreliable car, also means, i’m not going to a show today, though i saw only two days ago, a flyer for the legends car show by the sea, which i would have been interested in going to…you guys need to work on your advertising…i hope you got some cars to show up.
now my better half is making fun of me writing up my story for the day…”and there i was in vegas…”