As I stood by the side of the road, watching smoke rise ominously from under my car’s hood, I couldn’t help wondering – where, exactly, had I gone wrong?
I blame it on my decision to give up my part-time job, and go back to being a PTA-at-home-mom for a little longer (while my youngest finishes high school).
Apparently, I had been in the work world just long enough to think my life would be simpler, staying home. How bad could it be, I thought, with nothing to do all day?
Cut to: Smoke billowing from hood of car.
* * * *
Days before my last day at work, I started my “To Do” list: things I would now have plenty of time to accomplish. “Write award-winning memoir” was just one of the items. Most of them were more mundane:
“Get chimney cleaned”
“Get hinges fixed on bathroom door so it closes all the way”
“Get plumber to fix hot water leak”
“Get gutters cleaned”
“Get gutters re-attached to house”
“Get siding re-attached to house”
“Get crack in car windshield fixed.”
The list of What Needs Fixing grew and grew, but essentially boiled down to 3 things:
Everything inside the house
Everything outside the house
Everything else.
As I stared at this list, only one item looked even remotely achievable: “Get crack in car windshield fixed.”
Luckily, a friend of mine had just fixed a crack in her car’s windshield – so at least I knew of somewhere to take the car.
Unlike my friend’s car, however, mine had spent the winter under so much ice and snow, at the top of the driveway, that I had given up cleaning it off; and by the time I could get into the car, again, the battery had died. So now I needed a jump start and a trip to a garage for a new battery.
With the battery installed, I could drive to the windshield appointment. Except my inspection sticker had expired during the winter, too.
“It’s a massive fine if the police spot you driving around like that,” my mechanic warned.
I knew that was true. I once had a police car pass me in the opposite direction, only to immediately do a U-turn and pull me over to ticket me for an expired sticker. That car had been a lease, and I was driving it back to the dealer; in 20 more minutes it would not have been my car any more. But it was my $85.
“Can you do the inspection?” I ask the mechanic.
“Sure,” he answered – but not until I’d driven the car another 50 miles or so, because whatever the inspection looks for had been zeroed out along with my radio stations, when they changed the battery. So they settled for changing my oil, and I took the car home
My mission was now to accumulate 50 miles without being noticed. I drove more boringly than any teen on their Road Test, over the most obscure back roads I could find.
At some point, sitting behind a Jeep at a traffic light, I became aware of a light mist-colored smoke drifting across my hood. It smelled like someone was burning leaves somewhere. No, something more mechanical. “Oh, geez,” I thought to myself. “That poor shlub ahead of me is really in trouble! Something in his car is burning up. I wonder if he knows?”
Then the light changed, and the Jeep took off, turning right onto a side-road – and the mist continued drifting over my hood. Gradually, it dawned on me: I was the shlub, and it was something in MY car that was burning up!
Every bad car chase scene I ever saw flashed through my head. How many seconds did I have, to get somewhere I could pull over, before my car burst into flames? I finally made it to a parking lot, turned off the car and jumped out.
Ten minutes later, smoke was still curling out from under my hood. The tow truck had no trouble finding me.
One tow and $1,200-worth of work at the dealership later, the verdict came back: the car was, unbelievably, sound, but oil had been spilled all over the inside of the engine area, and that was probably what had burned off.
By the time my car was inspected, and the windshield repaired, I had lost the entire To Do list. It’s just as well. All this “nothing” to do is killing me!
