Engine troubles

Our Internet is working now, yay! The cable guy put in a new modem.

I had a wild day yesterday. It actually started Thursday night. Remember that coffee shop my dh and I were at to check our e-mail since our Internet was down? There was a great jazz band playing there live. They use the coffee shop for band practice twice a month, so we were serenaded by Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Ray Charles while we surfed. It was fun.

When the coffee shop closed and we went out to the car to go home, my dh turned over the key and nothing. Nothing. Our battery was dead (he thinks). This particular coffee shop–known for its great coffee; the great jazz was a pleasant surprise benefit–was about as far from our house as you could get and still be in the same city. Did I mention that our son’s car is in the shop right now? Along with our youngest daughter’s? Did I mention that my son-in-law-works nights so his help was also unavailable? No?

So my dh called my son to come jump us with my dh’s work van–the work van that is so close to its dying breath that my dh has been looking for a new beat up old work truck for a month now. And we settled in to wait for the half hour it takes to get from our house to the coffee shop. If you were driving a car that was not on its last legs, that is.

One of the musicians–I think it was the trombone player–who no doubt wondered why we were sitting in the parking lot with everything closed and no one around, came up and asked us if everything was okay. He, of course, didn’t have jumper cables in his car. We didn’t either, of course, having loaned them to one of the kids (which one?) and forgetting to get them back again. But the trombone player persisted, and checked with his band
mates, and one of them had brand new-looking jumper cables. “Oh, these aren’t new–I’ve had them for x years (a long time, I forget how long now) but have never had to use them before!” That’s funny, we have never used our jumper cables either, a track record which will remain unbroken if my dh can figure out which one of the kids have them. So the guys got the engine going. Success at last!

We settled in to wait for my son with the engine idling. He lost his cell phone out in the foothills one day and hasn’t had time to get it replaced yet. So of course we couldn’t call him and say, “Don’t come, we will be home shortly!” We were blissfully idling in the dark when:

DH: What’s that?
ME: What’s what?
DH: Shhhh!!
ME: ::: silence, except for the knocking in the engine :::
DH: How long has it been since I last checked the oil in this car?
ME: Ummmmm ….
DH: The engine is out of oil! We need to get to a gas station right now!
ME: How will our son know why we aren’t here?
DH: We will just have to hope that we don’t miss each other.

Of course, my dh had to turn off the engine at the gas station in order to put oil in it. When he turned over the key … nothing. Of course. This time we couldn’t call our son to come jump us with the dying work van, because he was no longer home, and was probably at the coffee shop at that exact moment (if the van hadn’t died) wondering why we weren’t there. Luckily, the gas station attendant had jumper cables and no one was in the store at the moment, so the guys got the engine going again, with no permanent damage, thank the Lord. Back to our spot in the coffee shop parking lot we went, waiting for our son.

DH: He came while we were at the gas station.
ME: Maybe not.
DH: He should have been here by now, if the van didn’t break down and he is on the side of the road somewhere.
ME:
DH: We should go home.
ME: What if he comes as soon as we leave?
DH: We have to wait until we hear from him then.

Sure enough, after a while my dh’s cell phone rang.

SON: Where were you? I thought I went to the wrong coffee shop!
DH: Stay by the phone! We will start for home now, and if we break down on the way, I’ll call you.

On the way home, I heard a lovely oratory on the evils of modern car engines and their safety features which prevents them from being started by popping the clutch. We did get home okay … an hour and a half after the coffee shop closed.