Reduced Power: Final Ride

As the VUE comes to a stop on the incline, and begins to roll backward, I apply the brakes, which happily work. Now, I am once again forced to assess my situation. I am trapped on a two-lane hill, with two kids in the car and I can only go backwards, down the hill, and that is only through the miracle known as gravity. Going forwards seems unlikely. “Now we are in trouble,” I say to my two-year old, who was roused from his sleep by an annoyed motorist leaning on his horn. He responds by saying, “Stopped, Da.”
The boy is a genius. He woke up, looked around, and instantly analyzed the situation and pinpointed the problem -- we were stopped.
In an attempt to change our fortune, I did what every red-blooded, clear-thinking American would do – I started the truck up again. And it sputtered to life. I put it in D and we began to crawl up the hill and 15-inches per hour. But, there was a sense of elation in the VUE, we were moving forward.
At the top of hill, was a traffic light. And the road split into two lanes, one for turning right and one for straight and left turns. I wanted to go straight. The right-turn lane was empty, the straight/left lane had 6 cars lined up at the light. I knew that if I had to stop on the hill, I may not be able to get going again, so I calculated that going to top of the hill in the right-turn lane and going straight was my best move. So, we inched up the hill to the cross road and stopped at the light.
At this point, I looked over at the driver in the straight/left-turn lane to get his attention, to let him know that I am driving a partially disabled car and was going to go straight. I looked and I looked. I stared and I stared. I banged on my window. The man would not look at me. If it was a freak with purple hair and a dagger through is nose or good looking woman, or any other person that I didn’t want to see me staring they would have looked at me immediately. But because, I am trying to get his person’s attention its like I am invisible. So, I blow my horn, which gets me a dirty look, but a look. I mime to him that I want to go straight and my vehicle is impotent. He nods his head and gives me another dirty look as the light changes, but he got the message. He graciously lets me go in front of him.
  The downhill portion of Century Road is not as steep a grade, but it’s a longer hill. The VUE reached almost 30 miles per hour. I felt potent again. The bottom of the hill has another light, but a right-turn split which doesn’t require a stop. The timing gods were with us as we careened around the turn and through the light at 20 mph.  
  Soon, we were back to crawling at 10 mph but, the hard part of the journey was over. And the Saturn dealership was looming just around on more perilous turn on to Route 4. As we approached the entrance to Route 4, I felt a moment of panic as I tried to remember if I would need to merge into 60 mph traffic or if there was a dedicated lane for those entering the highway. Once again the traffic planners who designed the road had folks like me in mind and I chugged onto Route 4 and found a dedicated lane. Now, all I had to do was turn into the dealership and get this bucket fixed. I would call my parents to come get the kids and I would spend the day watching Fox News on the television in the dealership, while the worked on the VUE.
  Upon pulling into the dealership, I forego pulling into a parking space and turn right into the road leading back to the service bays. I put the machine in park and as I am about to get out. I am stopped by the logistics of getting two kids (who are now both sleeping again) out of the car and into the dealership without waking them, because God loves napping children and napping children, generally, do not run around car dealerships screaming and scratching the paint on the new 2007 models.
  I admit that the logistics of trying to get both kids out of the truck and into a place that is not designed to accommodate sleeping toddlers overwhelmed me and I gave up and woke Tiernan up. He took it well but was puzzled as to why we were leaving the truck running outside and going into a building with other cars. I walked into the dealership, holding Tiernan’s hand and carrying the still sleeping Reagan in her bucket and went right to the courtesy phone.
  I called my parents and after listening to the phone ring for, what felt like three days, my mother picked up wondering why Saturn of Paramus was calling her. Wasn’t she surprised when she heard her son’s voice? I told her the short story of where I was and why I was calling and she assured me that grandma and grandpa would be right out to take the kids home. I told her to put on some speed; Reagan would be waking up soon looking for food -- food, which I did not have, because I was terrible parent. She once again assured me that they would be there ASAP.
  I hung up the phone and went back to the service area and informed the gentleman that I need service and that the patient was running in the middle of approach to the service bays. “We’ll take a look at it and let you know. Have a seat,” said the man.
  As we approached the waiting area, Tiernan took one look at the television and said, “Dada. Caillou?” (See previous post) And, I said I would try to find Caillou. I actually hoped the little Canadian runt was on. I wanted Tiernan to watch the whinny little jerk. As much as I hated all three hairs on his bald little head, I hoped beyond hope that he would be on and Tiernan would be able to hang on his every high-pitched word instead of hanging on me. Alas, he was nowhere to be found and Tiernan had to settle for watching Blues Clues. I found myself once again thanking God for giving the world Tivo.
  Before things got too out of hand or Reagan woke up screaming, the cavalry showed up, in the form of Grandma and Grandpa, and took the kids home to be fed and changed.
  Just as I was beginning to relax, knowing that the kids were in good hands and safe from starving, the man from the service area came out. “Mr. O’Rourke, I have good news and bad news.”
  Oh, boy! Here we go.
  “The good news is that we will be able to repair the car by the end of the day,” and he hands me a piece of paper with about 6 different part numbers on it. “We need to get these parts from other dealership around the state, but we should be able to get it done today.”
  Parts from other dealerships – that ain’t ever good.
  “It seems that you need a whole new throttle body. The bad news its that its gonna cost about $900 to $1,000,” he says.
  “$900,” I says. My first thought is that for $900.00, I’d rather trade it in for a new Relay, which is bigger and better suits the needs of our growing family. But, I know that my brilliant wife would never agree to anything so hasty and reckless. I tell the nice man to start fixing the problem.
  At this point, I call my wife for the first time. I give her the short version of the my how my morning is going and assure her that all the kids are fine and everything is peaceful, except that we are going to be out a grand to repair the car, to which she says, “Geez, for $1,000 we should really just look into trading it in, while we still have value for it and get a new Saturn Relay, which is bigger would better suit our needs as the kids get older.” Didn’t I tell you she was brilliant?
  And five hours later, I drove out of the Saturn dealership in a brand new Saturn Relay, with two sliding doors, and a built in DVD system. But it is not a minivan. It is an FUV – a Family Utility Vehicle. Now, everybody is happy. Tiernan is happy, now he can watch Bob the Builder in the car. Daddy is happy, we don’t have any Caillou DVDs, and Reagan is content and a content four-month old is a happy four-month old.
  Just a quick epilogue: A couple days later I had to go back out to the dealership to pick up the registration. And we pull into the parking lot and Tiernan says, “No Da. No new car. No new car. No. no. no.”