Last Wednesday I took my car in to the garage. The dashboard was telling me it needed service and—this being August—I also needed the annual inspection.
Plus—the Check Engine light had been on
for a couple of weeks. (Although this is not always indicative of something
major. In fact, almost every time it’s come on it was either a hiccup or
something extremely minor. So I didn’t really take it as being something
urgent.
However, on Tuesday, the engine took to
stalling when I came to a stop light, so I was glad I’d made the appointment
for the service.
The Saab guy at the shop had told me that
the 120K (the car actually only has 116K miles, but the dashboard won’t shut up
about service until the mechanic turns it off) mile service is a full-day
affair, so I was prepared for that.
However, late in the day, when I called
for a sitrep, the guy said that the check engine fault needed a couple of parts,
which “Saab’s not making anymore”, and so he was having to call around to
source them.
The good news was the vehicle passed
inspection. Bad news was I couldn’t pick it up.
We went through Thursday the same way. At
about 1600, when I called, he said he’d found the parts and hoped to have them
in the next day.
And this is where I—a fourth-generation
native Californian who grew up in LA—began to stress. I can’t be without a car.
It’s not just that I live in the suburbs where bus service sucks. (I can, in
fact, walk to two grocery stores, but it’s the carrying stuff back that makes
it impossible to anything except emergency shops.) It’s not even that I had any
appointments that I needed to get to, as in actually driving somewhere.
It's that the very notion of not having
a reliable personal vehicle that I can hop into and go somewhere gives me the
jim-jams.
The cortisol buildup was considerable.
Friday was also looking bad—another day of
looking out my front window and seeing an empty space where a silver Saab
should be. I called just after 1300 and he told me the same thing: he’d
received one of the parts, but was still waiting for the other.
So, there I was, facing the prospect of
having to go through the weekend without wheels. I considered applying for
refugee status.
I called a friend and wailed for 40
minutes about the injustice of not having a car. But around 90 minutes
later, he rang me to say the second part had come in and the car was ready for
me.
Well, I put on my walking shoes, stuffed
my driver’s license and Amex card in my pocket and walked the two miles to the
garage. In 84-degree weather. (Yes, I could have called Uber, but I know from
experience that it’s $15 for that two-mile journey, plus tip, and I needed to
work off the cortisol.)
And $1100 later, I turned the key in the
ignition, the car started and didn’t cough all the (two-mile) way home. I parked it in its slot and patted it on the hood as I went inside.
(Yes, okay: I'd wash it. Right after I harvest the crop of radishes.)
Order was restored to my world.
That evening, my friend and I had this
exchange.
Well, as it happens, my neighbors were
moving in on Saturday, and their van blocked my car in until early afternoon,
so I couldn’t use it. But it didn’t matter, because it was there.
And all weekend long I’ve been reminded of
how grateful I am to have an operational, reliable vehicle. I’m running low on
butter, so I need to make a Costco run.
©2025 Bas Bleu
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