Almost dying on the road

Have I told you about my car troubles lately? No? Good for me.

Two months ago my car stopped working. More exactly it was racing and the mechanic said he couldn't get parts for it any more because it's 31 years old. He tried putting in a remanufactured part and it was worse than before. Can I live with the racing? Then it started overheating even when it wasn't racing. I didn't bother to go back to the mechanic ... just stopped driving it.

I borrowed a car from my mother that she wasn't using ... it used to be my dad's car before he died. And I started trying to figure out what kind of car I want to get. Yeah, right ... make a major decision about a major purchase without Wife badgering me into it? Good luck.

Then the borrowed car started to behave oddly. I didn't take it into a mechanic. There were reasons -- I was traveling for Thanksgiving and then for two weekends afterwards -- but of course the main reason was that I couldn't make myself do it. My social anxiety made me rather do anything than pick up the damned phone and make an appointment.

Finally the boys both came back from college for the holidays. (Son 1 graduated.) And I drove them to stay with Wife for a week. The following email to Marie picks up the story from there.

Hi love!
 

I drove the boys to Wife's place this evening.
 

Have I told you about the troubles I’ve been having with my dad's car that I’m borrowing from my mother? For the last couple weeks it has been slipping out of gear unpredictably as I drive. (This means the car continues to drift forward at almost a constant velocity because of the First Law of Motion, but pressing on the gas accomplishes nothing besides racing the engine.) That’s the short version. There’s a lot more narrative but none of it rises even to the level of correlation, let alone causation.
 

So the drive to Wife's town was a little too exciting. (Only once did we nearly die, I think. The other times I wasn’t too worried.) Once there we discussed with Wife and she let me leave my dad's car there and borrow one of her cars to come home. [She has two.] Tomorrow the boys will take my dad's car to her mechanic.
 

On the way home I nearly died again, for a totally different reason: some crazy man coming the other way swerved out of his lane into mine, coming straight at me. I swerved onto the shoulder and he missed me. But I drove the rest of the way home very skittishly.
 

I got your email about [stuff that happened in her day] but all the same I hope your day was less interesting than mine.
 

Glad to be home safe and sound,
Your Hosea

 

Her response was less polished than some of her emails have been at other times:

 

FUCK! 

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Jesus, love, this kind of shit is not supposed to be happening to you!

Okay, sweetness.

I probably wasn't helpful there.

But FUCK!

You are not allowed to die, LEAST OF ALL TAKING YOUR SONS WITH YOU!

Dearest.  Sweetness.  My beloved.

I'm really wishing I had studied feminine wiles more in my youth, because there's no logic I can employ that you can't beat me at.

But, fuck.

If you're driving a vehicle that you know might randomly fail in a way that will kill you, don't drive it.

Please?

Of course, there's nothing you or anyone can do to protect yourself from random insanity by strangers, but operating failing machinery is a known, and avoidable, risk.

Think of it this way:  would you tolerate something professionally, if strangers' lives were at risk, rather than yours and your sons?

Finally, I am SO VERY GLAD you are home safe.

Rest now.

Always your Marie.

 

Of course she was right, and I told her so without trying to explain or exonerate.

 

Wife's mechanic said it might cost $5-7000 to fix. It's not worth that. So my mother had it towed back to her place while she decides what to do. And I'm driving one of Wife's two cars because I can't get my ass in gear to buy a new one of my own.