The End of Sanity - Car Troubles, Part II

It was a beautiful December day, the type of day that can only be had in the south at that time of year – sixty degrees and sunny. I was coming back from LaGrange, where I had been on business, listening to NPR, as always, and learning some very interesting information about our military interests in the Indian Ocean (specifically, the island of Diego Garcia). I was looking forward to the next piece which had something to do with cooking mushrooms.

But before I could start salivating, my tire exploded. There’s really no other way to describe it. One minute I was in the Indian Ocean thinking of fungus, the next I was listening to a terrible grinding noise and seeing large chunks of my car flying out behind me on GA-400. Needless to say, when one is going 60 or 70 mph, tires do not explode in a merciful manner.

Somehow I still had complete control of the car, so I turned on my blinkers and pulled over three lanes to the shoulder through a sudden gap in the traffic. One thing I will say for Atlanta drivers: while they can be real jerks sometimes, they are very obliging when you are throwing metal at them. On the side of the road, I collected myself, counted all of my digits, and then swung my head around to look for other cars that I hit with my car body buckshot. Surprisingly, there were none, though I could see small remnants of my car flapping around in the road a few hundred feet back.

Sitting there in my car on the side of the highway, cars whizzing by, I was surprised that my car had not erupted in flames (see previous post), but this was a very pleasant surprise. So I was in a much more jovial mood than many probably would have been. But fear not, it would not last.

I hopped out of the car to inspect the damage to my front left tire. It looked a lot like a scene from Terminator, so I figured I should get a tow truck. The tread had become disattached from the rest of the tire all the way around except in one spot. So rather than just falling off and me needing to get a new tire, the tread had whipped around in the wheel well and mutilated everything in its path. Unfortunately that included my lucky “Smith and Sons, Locksmiths” sticker that previously graced the splash guard. I’m afraid that family went all to pieces.

I had it towed to the Toyota dealership where the attendant gave me one of those awful pained looks that says “We are going to get so much money out of this.”

“Looks pretty bad,” says he with aforementioned grimace. “You’re gonna need new brakes, new struts, new splash guards, new wiring, new headlights, a new hydrophobic water pump, a kryptonite windshield, a red paint job, hydraulics for the back, and at least three oversized Singing Billy Bones wall hangings.” You know – those mounted singing fish that you see at Cracker Barrel.

After inspecting it more myself and realizing just how perfectly those wall hangings would fit on my dash, I had to agree with the attendant.

So my wife came and got me and we left my car with the dealer. That night we worked it out so that we could share her car for the next few weeks. It was near Christmas, and we were traveling with my family for a week anyway, so it was not too much trouble. I went to sleep that night tired, but glad to have the episode behind me.

I woke up to frollicking birds the next day and my wife and I got in her car to take me to work. Everything was great for about thirty feet; then we hit a small dip in the road: “Ka CHUNK – GRRRRrrrrrr”

“Did you hear that?” I asked frantically.

“Hear what?”

“That chunking, grinding noise.”

“…No.”

I made her turn off the radio and we both listened intently as we drove to my work. Every time we hit any sort of bump, I would be at it again, “There it is! I heard it – all grinding and chunking, just like my car before it exploded.” But my wife just didn’t hear it.

A few days after this new issue arose (at least, I thought it was an issue), I took the car to a party at Dave and Buster’s, about half an hour away. I got on the highway and started hearing the noise and proceeded to go 45 mph the rest of the way. I was convinced that these tires were going to explode as well. And without Smith and Sons, Locksmiths, I knew my fate would be less lucky than before. Fortunately I survived the evening. But after about a week of enduring me always turning down the radio just as they were getting to those mushrooms on NPR, my wife told me I should just take it in to get looked at. So I did:

“It’s your struts,” they said. I nodded, feigning understanding. “You’ll probably also want these diamond-encrusted windshield wipers.”

So many dollars later, I took her car back home much more sparkly than it was before. But now having endured an exploding tire and messed up struts, I was beginning to go crazy. We took my wife’s car to Augusta for a wedding just a few days later, and I was so tense going above 60 mph that I basically just didn’t. And by the time we got home again, my back was so tight I could barely stand up properly. Then we went to visit family in Ohio, we took my brother’s car, and at one point when I was driving it, I thought his car was also going to explode, so I slowed down to about 40 mph on the highway and seriously considered pulling it over. It wasn’t for about 5 miles that I finally felt comfortable enough to bring it back up to speed. I thought I might never see the sunny borders of Georgia again.

And yet, I sit in Georgia now, writing this blog. Who would have guessed?

I’ve learned a lot from my recent car troubles. I learned how struts work. I’ve learned that it always takes longer to fix than you expect (nearly a full month for my car). I’ve learned that even the best insurance company can have some incompetent employees. And I’ve learned that I’m paranoid, or at least, this fact was confirmed.

But most importantly, I’ve learned just how nice diamonds can look on windshield wipers. My geologist friend told me they are rhinestones, but I didn’t believe him. I paid way too much for them to be rhinestones.