Learning Curve

This month has continued to teach me that patience is a virtue and cars are not indestructible. Why do I know this? Because, in the month of January, I have experienced numerous occasions where my car did silly things and required my patience. This month kicked off with a ton of fun, some of which you probably read in past posts. What wasn't included were some near-to-tragic events with my car. I have had the opportunity to be angry with my car, which made me have patience over having no control and needing to wait for repair.

Initially, I had a small fender bender to begin the month. I tapped another vehicle while I was in reverse. Next-to-no damage, but the fact that it happened was enough. Saturday morning before work in Saint Paul. I stopped at the house the car was parked infront of to inform whomever owned the vehicle and consequently was late to work.

The following Saturday morning before work in Saint Paul, my door was frozen shut. Once I was able to unfreeze the door and get in to start warming up the car, my driver's side door would not shut. I ended up holding the door as tightly as I could with both hands and locking the door to make sure it stayed shut. How else do you expect me to have driven to Saint Paul with one hand on the door, one hand on the steering wheel and a third, that I do not have, on the shifter? Yes, yes I know that is impossible. Reasons why I needed a quick solution.

If you can believe it, the next Saturday morning on my way to work in Saint Paul (are you noticing the trend here?), I stopped for some gas in what was turning into a bad wintry mix. While stopped I planned on cleaning my windows for a fresh clean start before the weather kicked into overdrive. When I lifted the wipers off the windshield, one of my wiper blades tumbled to the ground. Just so happening to be the wiper in front of the driver's point of view. Go. Figure. I picked up the blade and headed the rest of the way to work.

Luckily, there is no official damage to the other vehicle, or mine, from the small accident. My door has had no problems (cross your fingers, knock on wood!) since that day, and the lovely man at AutoZone was able to snap my wiper blade back on easy as pie. At this point I felt confident is saying, nothing else could possibly go wrong with my car this month; that would just be crazy!

Until the next Friday night. I was headed to my cousin's house to babysit and something, a little more than half way from where I live to where they are, started making some noise. I was unable to tell just what it was, but I thought it was bizarre that I could hear it over my music. I waited until I arrive at their house to see what was the matter. Low and behold, my rear right tire was flat. I figured there was not much I could do to change the situation, so I went on to the house. Finding out quickly that my cousin didn't actually need me to babysit anymore, I had the time to contact AAA and be rescued.

Although unadvised to drive around on your spare, I managed to be successful at navigating around potholes for less than a week before selling an arm and a leg for two new tires. Game on car. Let's see what you will do -or won't do- the rest of winter!

More on the way!
Sarah Marsh