break out the violin

Went to a screening last night in Atlanta approximately 50 miles away from my house. Less than 5 minutes away from my destination, with rain and heavy evening traffic, my car chimes strangely and I realize that my car has decided to overheat.

Luckily, I made it to the theater before my car crapped out on me. Went to the screening and enjoyed it. Following the movie, the friend who joined me took me to a local gas station where I grabbed some antifreeze and worked under the hood for a bit. I left the theater with a close eye on the gauge and saying prayers I would make it home.

Less than 15 minutes later, the gauge goes flying back up to HOT and I am forced to pull over at the I-85/I-20 interchange with cars flying by me on both sides and nowhere to go. This was about 10:40pm. I call AAA and they dispatch a tow truck, but tell me it may take a while for them to arrive. Shortly after midnight, the tow truck arrives and thankfully the guy is very nice. He transports my car to a gas station nearby and we attempt to remedy the problem with more antifreeze.

We soon discover that the fan is not working, so I decide that it's not worth getting a rental car and I get him to haul me and my car back to Covington, where we drop my car off at a local service center. Because I am a Basic AAA member, my coverage for towing is only good for the first 5 miles. So I have to pay the guy $2.50 a mile and the tow charge ends up being close to $200. I had called AAA earlier to see if I could upgrade my membership to Plus to get the 100 mile tow coverage, but the lady told me that even if I upgraded right then on the phone, the benefits of that coverage wouldn't go into effect until I got the fucking card in the mail. What a load of shit. The tow truck driver concurs. After all is said and done, the tow truck driver drops me off at my house at 2am.

About 10am today, the guy from the service center calls and says that something indeed is wrong with the fan or relay and that he will have to special order a $60 part that most likely won't be available until tomorrow and that the labor to install the part will be in the $150-$200 range. So, there's more money to be spent. I just finished almost $250 to have a couple of tires replaced on Monday. My car has been extremely reliable these past seven years, so I am hoping that this is a mere fluke.

Both my mother and my sister are currently overseas on vacation and my mother's car is at a friend's house in Atlanta. While I don't really mind not having a car for 24-48 hours since I am currently unemployed, it does stick in my craw a little bit because I had things I needed to do around town today. But, they are within walking distance and I need the exercise.

So, I ask that you send good vibes this way for Leon the Neon and me.

You get more then just a violin.....

*sound of world's smallest orchestra playing*

ehm... it didn't strike you as odd that you had ants in your apartment? any idea why they were there in the first place?

oh, and i've got no violin for you, billy, but would you settle for a very small oboe?

Yeah, I read that in the manual before I left the theater, but as you said, it wouldn't have helped for very long, considering my problem.

I got the call a couple of hours ago that my car is repaired. Hopefully, I won't have any more problems like this.

no, i wasn't implying anything. i've heard that ants, termites and cockroaches can actually show up in very clean places as well: they're very hard to persuade to leave once they've got comfortable somewhere.

it's just that the way you mentioned it in your post, almost casually, made it sound like you thought it was the most natural thing in the world.