A tale of two cars

Part one: No more Neon

A week ago Thursday I got a call at work  just before 5. It was Clay.

"I'm on my way to Marne," he said.

"For?" I asked, puzzled, of course. It's not a place we go to, but we do drive through fairly often.

I can't quote exactly what he said. But the essence was this: Meagan was driving on I-96  toward Grand Haven, to the beach with three friends, and she'd rolled the car.

Rolled the car? That tinny little Neon? What happened?

As far as he knew, all the kids were OK. The police were there, and a tow truck. That was all he knew at the moment.

It was all he could tell me, so I hung up and let him continue driving.

I didn't know what else to do, so I packed up my stuff and left work. Meagan called as I was climbing into the truck. She told me the same story. They were all OK; paramedics had been there and checked them out. Police were there. Tow truck. She was waiting for Dad, who apparently was stuck in rush hour traffic.

I asked her what happened, and apparently, she was driving in the left lane and she reached for a chapstick being handed to her by one of her friends. She took her eyes off the road for a second, and the car veered a little. She over corrected, went off the shoulder and rolled into the median. The car landed on its roof. All four kids climbed out over the windshield. They had scratches on their hands and knees, but none was cut seriously. She was clearly upset, but not hysterical. She was mostly mad and embarrassed that she'd wrecked her car.

Not too long after I arrived home, Clay and Meagan returned. She was dirty, scratched and fighting tears. She took a shower and just "wanted to be alone for awhile."

Good lord. Susan had just had a close encounter not six weeks ago with their Subaru, which, incidently, we'd only recently had some auto salvager tow away from the front yard. The Neon had only been theirs since July 4. And now Meagan had a could-have-been-much-worse accident. There's been a run this summer of teens being killed in car crashes. We're so thankful our daughters have escaped theirs without injury.

But two totalled cars in one summer? Four people working five jobs -- one that's out of town -- demands that we have at least three cars at our disposal (as suburbians we have never been users of public transportation, for better or worse, and anyway, the bus doesn't come this far north anymore). Replacing the Subaru with the Neon was a bit of a strain (even with Grandpa's help).  And I should also remind that the other two cars -- a minivan and small truck -- are none too reliable either, being vehicles of vintages '96 and '98 respectively. Now what?

Part two: Great balls of fi -re

So the next morning, Meagan had to take me to work, as Susan did after she wrecked a car, so that the girls would have transportation to and from their jobs. (They have to work out the details for themselves, since they work such odd and different hours.) The van had earlier had a gas leak somewhere (which Clay had had fixed) but recently I started to smell gas inside the car again. This morning the gasoline smell in the passenger compartment was strong during the entire drive downtown, and I'll be the first to admit we  probably should not have driven the car. But there you go. We did.

I pulled into the parking lot, stopped alongside the building, and climbed out so Meg could take over the driver's seat. I went into the building and up the stairs to our offices. I had just got to my desk, and while co-workers were asking all about my daughter's accident from the night before, my cell phone rang. It was Meg.

"Mom, I'm not going anywhere," she said.

"Why not?"

"When I went to leave, there was a loud pop and smoke started coming out from under the hood," she said.

I remember my coworkers still chattering at me as I said something about, "... and now my car is on fire downstairs outside this building ..." And I rushed out.

Black smoke was indeed curling out from under the hood. Meg was standing far away from the car. I approached it, opened the door and popped the hood, but someone walking across the parking lot who could see beneath the car said, "You might not know it, but there are sparks and some flames under there ..."  I decided I'd better get away from the car, too.

I went back into the building and by that time our PR director, whom I work with, was downstairs at the reception desk. While I was foggily wondering whether this was bad enough to call the fire department, she told the girl behind the desk to call 911.  And University security, plus the reception desks at nearby buildings. And to warn those in this building that they might want to move their cars.

Now the smell of burning rubber was strong and the black smoke was starting to billow out of the engine compartment, along with some flames. People with fire extinguishers were trying to help, but there wasn't much they could do. A fire truck arrived and real fire extinguishing began. Those guys must have sprayed that van down five times before they were satisfied the danger was over.

It's hard to remember all what happened during the confusion: who did what, was where, said what. In the end, the van sat, smoking and dripping, the engine compartment a melted, stinking black mass that only said to me, "Another close call. Another totalled car..."

I do, however, remember one of the firefighters turning to me as he watched one of his comrades spraying water on the engine for the nth time and saying, "That your car?"

"Yes," I replied.

"I don't think the heater is going to work anymore," he said.

Huh. It took me a second ... then I laughed.

What else you gonna do?

Comments

[lori]

Holy cow, woman!

You need a ride anywhere? :)