A Really Crappy Day...(or: Hell on Exit 88)

Sunday evening I got home from a bioethics conference in NY (THAT was interesting: I met Diane Coleman who is the founder of Not Dead Yet and self-proclaimed archnemesis of Peter Singer, hero to many philosophers. Her schtick is that she is a victim because she is convinced that physicians are hell-bent on killing her because they are mindlessly following Singer's Svengali-like influence over the medical community. Let's just say that after spending about 16 hours over the course of two days in her company that I was starting to think they had the right idea.) and was eager to be home away from all the hustle and bustle of a professional philosopher's life. Monday was a beautiful, sunny day, and Simon and Frederick set out as they always do for Ann Arbor about 3 o'clock. At 3:30, just when I was really starting to enjoy the quiet, empty house, Simon called to say that his car has broken down. According to witness reports, the car started making a horrific clunking noise and Simon barely managed to get it off the freeway. Very luckily, this party store/mechanic/tow company was the first business at the exit.

Here is Frederick in the car patiently waiting for me to pick them up and take them home. I got the call from Woody the next morning while Simon was in the executive meeting (his favorite thing to do): the car is deader than a dead thing. We went through the normal stages of grief but eventually acknowledged that we knew this day was coming. I taught Tuesday afternoon (bioethics--bah! I'm really getting sick of it.) so we penciled Wednesday morning to be the day we empty Simon's car, sign it over to the mechanic writing it off, and deal with the rest of the things we needed to do that day.
But, alas, the Fates have it in for us. I dropped the kids off at school and on the way home, my air conditioner died--highly unusual for my car (which has a amazing set of sick car symptoms) so I was concerned, but obviously also in denial. I got home and Simon and his dad piled into the car and we set out to (1) offload Simon's car onto the mechanic and (2) go to Bordine's (the local nursery) to check out plants to cover our unsightly Family Video wall in our backyard. We were heading down the 23, same as Simon was on Monday afternoon (only we were being treated to a horrifically hot and humid day) when my car sputtered, spurted and...died at the side of the road. Here we are, sitting, waiting for the AAA tow truck to show up (it took them almost 45 minutes). Simon promised to be a trooper and sit with the car while his dad and I walked up the road to a Speedway. I called my mom and she came to get us--imagine her surprise when I called and said that my car, too, had died on the 23 only 13 miles from where Simon's had died! Oh, how we laughed! So she came to get us (and just about that time Simon was being loaded into the tow truck to head to a mechanic to get a diagnosis for my car). We headed back home, dropped her off and she loaned us the use of her car with strict instructions to stay off I 23. We picked up Simon who was with my car and got the word: the alternator died, draining (and killing) the battery. A seemingly simple solution except that in the past 2 years this car has broken down dead at the side of the road 4 times, each time with either a broken alternator or dead battery. Something is seriously wrong with this car.
And so we set out (despite grandma's pleadings) south on 23, holding our breath, clenching our jaws, girding our loins, choking on our rage (and so on) as we pass Exit 88, the scene of our earlier adventure. We finally got to Woody's and emptied Simon's car (what a lot of crap he had in there), including the stereo I got him for his birthday 2 years ago (but not the speakers and we couldn't get the tow hitch off so that was a loss). It's kind of amazing how easy it is to sign a car over to someone else--it took about 20 seconds.
We then went to The French Laundry for lunch--this is one of those places that is filled with well-heeled women having chatty lunches, all swanked out in their best summery outfits and hair-dos. We, on the other hand, looked like desert island refugees after a shipwreck. Finally, we made it to Bordine's and grandpa went nuts buying rhododendrens and the like. Bordine's is, normally, one of my favorite places, but my heart just wasn't in it. After that, we dropped Simon off to pick up my car (and pay the jaw-clenching inducing bill so that we have SOMETHING to drive for the next couple of days while we figure out what to do).
Everyone did eventually make it home: we had a decent pasta dinner, Thomas, Frederick and Bryce played in the pool until the wee hours, then the grownups watched Yojimbo (one of my all-time favorite movies). Maybe everything will be all right...Though we did have a power-outage in the middle of the night and, once I woke up and realized that we had no power--no air conditioning!!!--my first thought was, "Oh, shit! The whole house is broken!" but it wasn't personal, the whole neighborhood was in darkness and the power did kick in after a while...When WILL there be good news?