Friday, March 28, 2008

Car's in the Shop

About a week ago my car decided to stop working halfway back to my apartment on the 405. Up until now, I hadn't really had any major problems so far (7 years old and still going).
So it can as a shock when I found myself unable to accelerate, while the car was uncontrollably downshifting every few seconds. Thankfully, I was able to pull off to the shoulder safely and call AAA for a tow. As I was waiting patiently in the driver's seat, cars whizzing by at what seemed like Mach 4, I thought why not try to start her up again. Sure enough it worked and I drove home at a cautious 60 mph (fingers crossed the whole time) back to my parent's house.

Well, I'm lucky enough to have an uncle who used to run my family's auto repair shop, because he forwarded us a reliable contact who could work the repairs himself. Only problem was he wouldn't be able to work on my car until the following weekend. The timing worked out fairly well though, since my Mom recently retired from her long time Northrop job, and graciously let me borrow her car for the week. I wasn't all that used to her "big ol' Camry" (hey, I just happen to think my Civic is the perfect size, okay?) at first, but I got used to it. I still couldn't really adjust to how it always felt massively wide though. And I'd always feel 10 feet high in that seat (I don't even want to know how it feels driving a truck or SUV), like I could see over traffic or something. I guess I just never felt comfortable in that thing.

Now that the week's over, I had to drive back down and swap cars with my sister (she and my Mom went up North for a basketball tourney my sister helps coach). So now I'm driving her Corolla and it's still feeling awkward, like it's the first time I've driven a car before. Nothing reckless or anything like that, but it taking me a lot longer to do things than I'm used to, like starting the car, checking the blind spots, that sort of thing. I kinda feel like Goldilocks and I'm driving the Three Bears' cars. I seriously can't wait until I can finally get my car back so everything will feel "just right"!