Wednesday was a bummer day.
Woke up at 4:30am to get to the airport
7:00am flight to chicago
8:45am – 6:00pm Business work
7:45pm flight home
10:30pm arrival at Bradley Airport in CT
11:50 11:07pm phone call:
JonAbad: I’m here.
Mike D: At Arrivals? I don’t see you
JonAbad: no…
Mike D: At Departures?
JonAbad: no…
JonAbad: Remember that Foreigner sign from this morning?
MikeD: Yes
JonAbad: I haven’t gotten to it yet.
Mike D: did the Acclaim break down?
JonAbad: I think it just ran out of gas.
MikeD: I’ll be right there.
11:12pm Blinking lights… A state trooper has come to render aid.
Officer Statey: What’s the problem?
JonAbad: It may be out of gas but it says it has 1/8th of a tank.
Officer Statey: Do you have any money? Have you called a tow truck?
JonAbad: My friend who I’m picking up is on his way, its his car.
Officer Statey: Okay, I’ll wait back here.
11:17pm MikeD arrives at the scene. We attempt to turn it over again without success. -j
11:20pm Officer Statey can’t help us get gas but comes up with genius back-car-onto-curb plan to get out of the midnight rush hour traffic at Bradley. -j
11:25pm MikeD and I switch shoes. MikeD plans to run to a gas station on the other side of the airport and return with gas. I suggest him getting a ride from one of the many car rental shuttle buses passing by. -j
11:40pm Listened to a few jams on the iPod. MikeD returns without gas. I am confused as his speed and lack of gas. “Airport Maintenance is a much better idea” he says. -j
11:45pm Airport maintenance gives us gas
11:47pm We determine that gas is not the problem
THURSDAY.
12:00am We call a tow truck
12:45am tow truck arrives
1:40am I find out it will cost $220. I ask if we can stop at the bank
1:45am I withdraw the money
1:50am Arrival at the House of Rock
2:15am Car is unloaded
2:45am check my e-mail. Turns out, The WebHosting company finds that nothing is wrong with my website. So the reason it’s slow is because of something we’ve done with WordPress.
3:00am bed.
5 hours of sleep
8:00am Walk to PepBoys to purchase car manual on Shamus’ suggestion
8:05am realize that I lost my ATM card the previous night.
I think that we shall soon see a new section of mikedidonato.com that goes into the joys and pains of owning a 1991 plymouth acclaim.
Edited by jpabad: I upped the crypticness of my phonecall to MikeD, added the parts before MikeD arrived and some after.
This doesn’t fit in the timeline but i feel it bears mentioning:
Since the Acclaim doesn’t have a rear view mirror, I used my iPod when I was curious as to who was behind me.
I suppose that I’m now okay with the ridiculousness of having a piece of electronics that’s meant to be polished since I can use it as a rescue mirror.
I’ll point out that despite all the misgivings of the Volvo, I never had to get it towed. Booyah!
Dude fuel pump? I’m still waiting for a rod to blow. Or possibly your oil pump to die, causing catastrophic failure, with things flying through your hood at high speeds.
Man, that sucks. I hate car problems because they inevitably cost lots of money – hope you can get it fixed easily.
Sounds like you need to take out the floor and Yabbadabba DOo it to work every day.
Neat hint: when you break down, call a net connected friend… have him sign you up for AAA… it’s like $50 a year or something i don’t know… then get your number from that process and call AAA… then get a free tow!
Not only do you get a free tow, you get AAA, sweet right?
i don’t think that would actually work.
and miked’s thriftyosity renders the spending of money on AAA to be silly.
Well, I did it, it worked.
Cost of your tow: $220
Cost of AAA + Tow: $48
Mike’s thriftyosity should render this decision a very simple one.
I have to add, that they do TONS of things for free depending on which level you get. You can get your keys out of a locked car multiple times, you can get up to and over 250 miles of free towing on some packages, and all sorts of neat features, plus free road maps if you plan trips, discounted movie tickets, and much much more…it’s honestly worth the small investment especially if you’re dealing with a car that you don’t want to just leave on the side of the road, along with the bonuses. I believe there’s also many hotel discounts available for members, and a list of hotels/motels that aren’t supposed to be sleazy.
I’ll vouche for it. I was out with my cousin one time and her car broke down. She called AAA, signed up on the phone, then called back with her newly acquired ID number and got towed. Whole process took maybe 30 min from first call to tow truck arrival. It was pretty sweet.
AAA best thing ever. Me and Shauna saved several hundreds of dollars by booking our honeymoon to Mexico through them. And discount movie tickets. I know MikeD doesn’t like to have fun by going to the movies but normal people do enjoy that type of thing.