In the spring of 2005, I bought my first car. I had cars before, but they were paid for my parents or just hand-me-downs by my parents, but after moving back from Philly in '05 and literally destroying the '97 Toyota Camry my mom gave me...(in my defense, there was salt from Pennsylvania snow trucks, someone stole my rearview mirror, and in a separate instance, hit me while I was parked)....the car did its best...and then after only about 3 months in Mississippi, poof, died. I sold it for parts for about $400.
So, I set about buying a new car. Keep in mind, I had terrible credit due to college credit cards and a job that paid well worth below what it should've....thank you, Columbus-inherited wealth. I bought, in '05, a '04 Chevrolet Aveo, with 13,000 miles at about $13,500, so I could have car payments at around $240. My interest rate, because of my terrible credit, was like 25%, which I had no idea was a bad interest rate, until I told Smitty, and this little thing in his head popped out, and we re-financed.
The car gets excellent gas mileage, like 36 miles per gallon, and I haven't had a lot of issues out of it...until the last few months. You could probably refer to a recent blog, I don't do the hyperlink thing, you either read it or you don't, where the radiator had issues, and I endured a commute with smoke billowing out of the hood. We had all that stuff replaced, plus a timing belt, all is well in Aveo land....until today.
I'm leaving work at 4 p.m., and the car made this weird noise like I ran over something. I clearly did not, so I kept driving. It wouldn't accelerate, and when it did, it make a clicking noise. Okay, Smitty is out of town, I just want to get home, so I say a prayer to make that happen. No, no, that is not to happen. The car completely died at the beginning of the on-ramp for St. Vincent's, which if you live in Birmingham, you know, is the worst place to have an incapacitated car. Did I mention Smitty was out of town?
So, 45 minutes after calling tow truck, tow truck man shows up, and immediately tells me to leave the keys in the car and get in the tow truck, because of the precarious location of the car. He ended up throwing a glove at a passenger bus because they wouldn't move over...Hell, yeah! He also gave me a ride home, which they're not supposed to do, but I think I was sufficiently pitiful and called the recent radiator hose replacement, the "radiator tube-y thing."
He also asked me some vaguely inappropriate questions about my length of marriage, his disdain for his own wife, pride that he had 5 kids, and a hope to find someone to carry more, to which I replied, "I only want ONE child, period, I think that's all I can handle." He said something about kids making the world go around, and I'm sure they do, if you get paid $105 for every person you tow. I literally have no idea if this was a hitting on me thing, as I NEVER know this sort of thing, but whatever...thank you for the ride home, and at least you weren't visibly scary. I don't like to play the Blanche Dubois card, but, oh, how I will, if I need to. Funnily enough, the people at the servicing place, who will eventually be footing this entire bill, since they used a faulty timing belt, also offered me a ride home. Apparently, the gal's still got it.
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