Car RX

If we were living during the flu epidemic of 1918, a doctor would have put a big quarantine notice on the door of our home, warning people to keep away.

If we were living during the Pirate days of the 15th & 16th centuries, we would hoist a black quarantine flag up the mainmast, warning others to stay away from our ship...far, far away.

We're thinking we might just install a flagpole in the middle of our driveway and hoist a scull and crossbones flag on it...right between our two cars.

Yes, after all the drama of our Red car dying a few of days ago, and the ensuing search for a new vehicle, we made the ill-fated error of verbalizing the old question, "We're already at the end of our resources here...how much worse can things get?"

But the cars overheard us, and during the night they conspired between themselves out there in the driveway.

I think the conversation went a little something like this:

Red Honda: They're always out here raising my hood in full view of all the neighborhood cars. It's embarrassing! I know I'm not some new model straight off the production line, but is all that really necessary? They might as well just slap a bumper sticker on my rear window that says, "By the looks of my car, you can tell I'm storing up my treasure in heaven!"

Ford Pick-up: You remember that night they left my window down, and a raccoon got inside and made a mess of my interior? I was wide open--WIDE OPEN! I felt so...vulnerable!

Red Honda: Yeah, well a couple years back, the lady left her purse in me for five minutes while she took that baby into church, and what happens? Some guy comes along and busts out the window, snatches her purse and runs. She had the audacity to cry foul about the glass in the infant carrier, when it was I that was left battered and broken out there. Then the man takes me downtown to some dive of a repair place, that I suspect was a front for a chop shop, and gets me a used window. Used! I've never felt so humiliated in all my life.

Ford Pick-up: They did that to me, too a couple of year's back. It was when that older kid was just a little guy, and hung on my rear view mirror and put a crack across the entirety of my windshield. Except that time, they brought the window doctor right to the house to give me a transplant. I know the feeling. They also left me unlocked not long after that, and while they slept, some neighborhood thugs crept stealthily down the street by cover of darkness, trying all the door handles and stealing all the change they could find in the ashtrays. Again, they left me wide open! I felt so...so...violated!

Red Honda: Yeah, and that little kid they always strap into the middle of my back seat spills crumbs and liquids all over the place, messing up my smooth, vinyl interior. It's not as if I don't already have enough wrong with me, but do they have to add insult to injury?

Ford Pick-up: And they're always throwing around those dumb acronyms for F.O.R.D...Fix Or Repair Daily...Found On Road Dead...HUH! I'll show YOU, Fix Or Repair Daily!!! ::shakes it's gimp side mirror towards the house::

Sure enough, when my husband was driving the truck home from work this afternoon, it stalled. Out of the blue.

Appears our trusty horsepower steed was a little off his feed.

Adding salt to the wound, Jeff was stuck on the side of the road. During evening rush hour. On the second busiest expanse of road in our city. Where everyone driving past could witness the debacle. He was there for 5 minutes trying to get it started again. When it finally did fire up, he gunned it, and it backfired. Really loud, with smoke.

It's never backfired before.

Jeff roared back into traffic, and managed to get the car all the way home, where it is sitting smugly in our driveway, shaking it's gimp mirror at us when we're not looking.

We know this because that same side mirror is in a different position every time we go outside.

The official diagnosis?

Bad Car-ma. (Forgive me, I'm being a little facetious for the sake of a great play on words)

That's the best they could come up with. The neighborhood men standing around looking at the car just shook their heads in resignation. "It is a Ford," one man said. "Theese trucks...they do not last forever," said another, sounding a little like Antonio Banderas. "It might be bad gas" said another, and they all laughed.

Jeff thought about that for a moment, recounting the last couple of times he'd needed to fill up. And sure enough, he'd made an emergency stop for $5 worth of gas one hectic afternoon at a less than stellar gas station near his job.

It's either bad gas, or, well...some kind of fuel-line trouble. Car constipation. The equivalent of a car kidney stone. The passing of build-up or residue, or a piece of old deteriorated rubber from the decrepit old gas station nozzles through the fuel line.

Or perhaps that car is just dying, too, who knows? And what an opportune moment for it to go...right when we needed it most!

Whatever the case, you've been warned, mateys! Don't come near us with yer cars...methinks we're contagious!

:: ::

Okay, so not even 40 minutes after this incident occurred, before I could even get this thing posted, Jeff's mom pulls up in our driveway. I greeted her at the passenger side window with, "You'll never guess what's happened now."

Her face fell. "The truck died, too?" she guessed with her well-honed, been-there-done-that powers of deduction.

"Yep. On Jeff's way home. He got it home and everything..." I said, with a forlorn glance over my shoulder, "but it needs work." With a sigh, I added, "I just don't know what we'll do if we have to buy two vehicles..."

Then I started laughing like a crazy woman...because it was either that or cry.

She lifted an envelope from the seat and handed it to me.

A bank withdrawl envelope from another family member. With a note on the outside that said, "To our Missionaries". Inside was $200. This person had apparently heard about our car troubles.

I feel so humbled. And blessed.

Even in the midst of our 'storm', when things looked the bleakest, the Lord was there, already looking out for our needs. *dabs tears* It was so reassuring to have such immediate and tangible help. And somehow, after that, I just knew everything will work out fine.