I went to meet my new floor guy at the hotel where my event is held, down by LAX. Everything was fine until the valet drove up with my car, and to my horror there was a vast billow of acrid white smoke coming out of the tailpipe. This had not been the case when I arrived just 20 minutes before. What the hell?
Luckily the floor guy and his assistant were still with me, so we all drove to a mechanic they know to take a look at it, while people honked and waved to tell me there was something wrong with my car. The mechanic took a break from watching the World Cup to pop the hood - he said I was definitely burning oil and that it looked like oil was in the combustion areas of the car, and I should take it to the dealer since it's under warranty. It was 3:00, I had to pick up B from preschool at 5:30, I was all the way on the other side of town, and Theo was screaming for a feed. It was a nightmare.
In the end the assistant drove her car and I drove mine to a dealer about a half hour away; it was too late for me to have it fixed so I had to leave it. I had to take out both car seats, the stroller, phone charger, B's books, everything else I could think of that I might need in case this became a lengthy process, and we headed back to the floor guy's place who then let me borrow his car, bless 'm!
We wrestled with the car seats for probably a half hour, then I had to feed the screaming Theo, then I headed out to pick up B nearly two hours late. Thank God this is the same place that has the evenings & weekends program he is already registered for! All I had to do was call and tell them I was going to be late and have him have dinner there. Can you imagine if he were somewhere that closed at five or six? What would I have done???
He was super happy and bouncy when I went to get him...but then was a kicky, slappy mess by the time we got home. I let the baby scream in the living room while I got B into his overnight diaper and pyjamas. I thought he must have been exhausted. For the record it's 9 PM and he's still bouncing around in his room. All righty then.
Thankfully Theo went down with a quick feed; maybe all these shenanigans will mean we can all sleep in a little more tomorrow...yeah, right!
The dealer called to tell me that Jiffy Lube had overfilled the oil tank by two quarts which was what caused the problem - this was weeks ago, so I shudder to imagine what this did to the rest of the car. I don't know if I'll be able to get my car tomorrow or not...let's hope this resolves quickly. I don't know how long this good faith loan of this car is meant to last for!
So I am thirsty, hungry, exhausted, and fed up. Today would have been a great day to have a partner who can help. But in the absence of that, at least I had friends who went way out of their way to help.
Sounds like everything went as smoothly as possible for a car break-down situation! Hopefully they can fix it quickly.
ReplyDelete