Maximum stupid

A former neighbor of mine once came to my door ragged eyed and looking like somebody who is THIS close to snapping someone's head off. As he was a neighbor I chatted with about once every few months - I could see he was straining to appear normal.

"Do you... have....a few minutes to... help me with something?"

I agreed before he finished his question. Because I could tell he'd been attacked by a Five Minute Job.

I've had my share of these - and the best thing to do is just jump in and not say a thing. By the time a home handyman has gotten to the "ask a neighbor" stage - they are only a few setbacks away from "paint your body blue and climb on the roof with a deer rifle."

The Five Minute Job is a project that shows all the signs of getting done in five minutes, yet somehow ends up consuming an entire day, the contents of your wallet, and any dignity you'd tucked away for safe keeping.

The FMJ has two main phases: a prolonged series of false summits followed by a moment of truth.

A lot of the agony the FMJ dishes out has to do with the victim mistaking the former for the latter. It is the the Spanish prisoner of home repair - just a  little farther... now a little farther...okay, farther still...

But this is all theory. Let's take a case study, shall we?

I'd already mentioned that a filthy car had given me the idea to address some long deferred maintenance. Change the oil, replace the windshield wipers.

Changing the oil was simple enough - I'd planned on getting this done with some recall work at the dealer, but booking an appointment requires lead time and could involve waiting a week. Heck with that. Besides, dealers cost more, right?

I do one of those drive in, drive out places and get 'er done over lunchtime. These places upsell so hard, I resist the $20 air filter they want to sell me, certain I can do better with NAPA.

Done. I decide to pick up wipers and air filter at the nearest store. The nearest store only has wipers. I buy a new pair for $34 - or rather, I buy two different wipers since my car takes two different sizes. It's spendy, but certainly cheaper than what the dealer would charge.

The second store has filters - and here's where things start to go off track. I do not recall the exact conversation with the store clerk. Since I have this thing where I remember my car as the year I bought it - 2005, rather than the car's actual year - I'm going to bet I asked for an air filter based on the year of purchase.

In any event, I was given an air filter for the wrong year.

As the following events will show, betting that this was my mistake is not so much a bet as it is a sound investment strategy.

To begin establishing this fact, I'm going to point out that I did not take the time to compare the size of the filter I bought with the memory of air filter the oil change guys took out and showed me. The actual filter? about 8 inches square. The one I bought? 16" by 8".

On the way home, I decide to fill up the tank at my favorite gyro shop/gas station. I pull in at the outermost pump, and hook up.

I notice it won't let me pick regular gas. Okay. Oddly enough it won't let me pick premium or super-duper hype gas, either. Odder.

All I can get is this fourth option with a sign next to it that says:

May contain up to 10% ethanol.

Okay, like I care - so I hit the button and start pumping gas. The 10% gas is priced higher than regular, but it won't be a full tank and the alternative is to move the car to another pump because this pump is apparently out of everything else.

Squeeze, lock. Zone out.

At about $12 bucks in - I see another sign above the gas button I selected.

Contains 85% Ethanol.

I begin zoning back in. Which is it? 85% or 10%? I look at the 85% sign again.

Now I'm at $15 bucks of this stuff. I look off to the holster where pulled the gas nozzle from. Above that is another sign:

I look at the pump - This sign is over the nozzle, not a specific fuel type - so does it apply to all four buttons?

I'm at $16 now.

I stop the pump. I'm at the leftmost edge of this pump. If I walk towards the right edge, I can now see another pump. This pump apparently allows me to pick from the other three types of gas.

The pump that just dispensed $16 bucks worth of fuel into my car - that one only pumps out E-85.

*Light bulb noise*

I have just put 7.65 gallons of E-85 into a non-flex fuel vehicle. My vehicle.

I need assistance. The clerk (who knows me well enough to place my usual gyro order when I walk in) is absolutely no help. "It is corrosive, but you should be able to drive."

Great. He does give me this bit of information: "This happens a lot."

No kidding.

I drive home. Rapid-fire internet searching tells me that this is probably not a major tragedy, but I should burn through this tank in a hurry and keep adding good gas as soon as I can - to dilute it.

Oh, and I should change my oil after it's all gone.

Good thing I changed my oil three hours ago.

So oil change - done and then undone. False summit.

On to act two: the air filter. I find out what I already told you - I have the wrong filter. Another false summit.

Act three: the wiper blades. Wiper blades are the classic FMJ. I have a mental model of what I've done for other cars. My old Nissan, changing the blades took ten seconds. Squeeze lever, remove. Squeeze lever, replace. Done.

This is what I'm expecting. My car's wipers are massive, and have no levers. There's a piece that looks like it comes off - but does not. Okay, okay - I'll RTFM. I read the manual and discover that wiper changing is not the clip in clip out with my particular car. The manual says I am supposed to take the rubber wiper off the blade assembly I just bought and slide it into the blade assembly that is part of my car.

By wiper, I mean a two foot long piece of rubber spaghetti, flanked by two long, separate (and extremely thin) strips of metal.

Now the manual says:

Slide the new wiper into the blade assembly.

It's a manual - it's not supposed to editorialize, but it would have helped me immeasurably for it to have added a single sentence after that.

Namely:

This will be practically impossible.

Picture pushing rubber spaghetti into a two foot long slot while keeping grooves on either side of it aligned with sets of tabs every inch or so.

Oh, and being a wiper blade - the slot curves to ensure the most friction possible. You cannot push a string, and pushing a rubber string (even one flanked with metal strips) is not much better.

I spend an obscene amount of time getting the shorter, passenger side blade inserted into its blade assembly using needlenose pliers, the aforementioned metal strips, and an unending stream of profanity.

One down - the short one. I double down and take the driver's side blade off, and begin again.

After about two inches, this blade simply stops. Dead. Using the needlenose pliers gives me 30 seconds of frustration followed by tearing six inches of the wiper blade in half.

As in: $17 down the crapper - and my car no longer has a wiper on the driver's side. And it's raining. And it will be tomorrow, too.

F(*^# this. I go to bed.

Day two of the Five Minute Job. I've reassessed the situation and decided there is no way in hell I'm going to buy a new blade and roll the dice again. I tear another $17 wiper, I'm going to start looking for blue body paint.

So I decide to suck it up and call the dealer. They will have the full blade assembly, with the factory-installed wiper, radiant in its perfection. It will cost an terrifying amount of money - but I have stopped caring.

The parts guy at the dealer tells me it costs $7.

*Electrical short*

Um, are we talking about the wiper blade, or the full assembly?

"Oh, just the wiper. You'll need to slide it into -"

I tried that with the last wiper I bought. Can I buy the whole-

"They are pretty tough, but if you come in, we'll do it for you - for free."

*Choirs of angels*

I'll be right there.

Seven-fricking-dollars - including installation. I'm such an idiot.

I take the all the wreckage from the $17 blade I bought - wiper, metal strips, assembly - and chuck it all in the garbage. Screw you.

I get both kids into the van, grab the stripped-down driver side blade assembly, and rocket over to the dealership.

[Observant readers will know what is about to happen - for the rest of you, enjoy the suspense.]

My boy loves the dealership - last time he got popcorn and got to play in their fully stocked playroom. I pull in and the boy immediately notices there is no popcorn machine. He is upset. Little E is also upset, she's sick and didn't want to leave the house.

I'm on a mission. I will have wipers, whatever the cost.

At the parts counter, I recognize the voice of the guy I talked to. I'm the wiper guy, I say and plunk down the blade assembly. I'm expecting he'll spend a great deal of time connecting my assembly with a wiper while me and the kids hit the playroom.

Instead, I've barely turned around when parts guy comes back with my assembly and a floppy-looking wiper blade.

Too late, I get it.

"Do you have the metal strips that go with this assembly?"

I spend a second picturing the metal birds-nest in my kitchen garbage. It speaks to me: Screw you, right back.

I tell them I left them at home since (at least in my head) when you buy a wiper, you buy the metal strips that sit inside it and are essential to its installation.

Parts guy assures me that wipers are sold without metal strips - so I tell him I'll be back in thirty minutes. No way in hell am I trying to install these myself. $7 wipers or not, I would fail.

I pile the kids back in the van. Neither are happy - both want the playroom. We'll get it after we come back doesn't seem to do much. I'm still on my mission, though.

I go home, leave them in the car and run to the garbage can. At this point, I've thrown out six metal strips, two from the passenger side wiper and four from the driver side. The driver's side ones are longer, and one is bent beyond all hope. I find the remaining pair and peel out in the van.

Back at the dealership. Before, they weren't busy - now, they are swarming with cars with appointments. I have no appointment - I'm just buying a $7 wiper.

The kids are on the verge of full blown freak out. It's lunchtime, neither has eaten. Both want to run around a room stocked with pirouetting cars. Dad is not in patient mode.

Parts guy. Me again, here are those metal strips. I try to grin. I'm batting a thousand today. Parts guy grins. He's trying not to pity me. I don't care. We're headed to the playroom.

"Uh, sir?"

No.

I turn around. Parts guy is holding my metal strips as one might hold a dead rat.

"These, uh....these are too short."

Now - at this point in the FMJ - after so many false summits - I believe I've finally arrived at the moment of truth.

This is not a happy realization because a moment of truth is merely the point at which you either triumph over adversity - or plummet to your death. I have no illusions about which option I'm headed for.

These are the ones I got off the car - these are the only ones I could bring you. What do I do now?

Parts guy thinks for a moment. Looks up my vehicle's VIN to make sure I haven't given him the wrong year/make/model. Incredibly, I haven't.

"Sir? How about I just sell you a full blade assembly with wiper at cost?"

There goes the choir of angels again. I want to hug this man. Instead, I ask him if they have an air filter for my car. They do. I buy it without noticing the cost.

Moment of truth: triumph over adversity. At a car dealership, no less.

I go home and clip in the new (and complete) blade assembly.

It takes ten seconds.

Role reversal

Weekends are pretty much freefall around here. E’s betting we don’t get out of the house before noon. I don’t take the bet. Good thing, too. We pull out of the driveway at 1:04.

On the list is post office, shopping and generally getting out of the damn house. We’re a bit frazzled, and kid logistics has the two of us way back on our heels. E was going to get a haircut, but that fell through. We need to mail some things we should have sent weeks ago, but we don’t know if the post office will even be open.

I’m betting it won’t. E’s not taking the bet.

Incredibly, we’re both wrong. A federal office building is open on a weekend until 4pm. Rather than unhook both kids, I drop E off and orbit. By the time she’s done – both kids are unconscious.

Which puts a crimp in the next agenda item. No biggie. E knows what she wants to get, storage stuff and a replacement bowl for the one our neighbor loaned us (that we broke). I go on a sightseeing tour of the fascinating industrial park, and E goes to work.

E bats about .500, but we’re thinking we can hit another store and get everything in one trip. I’m thinking about the next place when E yells out-

“Stop!”

The car ahead of me has stopped and I’m rolling right up on them. I slam on the brakes, and stop less than two feet from the car ahead of me.

Almost a complete duplicate of last time. My head was off somewhere, and I’d almost plowed into someone with our new van.

I exhale slowly. “That was-“

-And then we get creamed by someone else from behind.

-And then we get pushed into the car in front of us.

Dammit. Dammit.

A blue Honda has mushed itself against our back end, and we’ve rebounded off the back of a plum-colored Corolla.

In the way that people do following accidents, all three cars slowly drift over to the side of the road.

Everybody’s okay in the van. No airbags in sight. E’s checking on the Girl, the Boy’s fine, he’s chirping away and wondering why we’ve stopped.

The Corolla lady is out of her car, she looks okay. Honda woman is as well. Honda’s seen fit to come up and ask why we stopped. E and Honda lock horns for a moment – and it’s clear that Honda hasn’t yet done the math and realized that she’s plowed into a vehicle that wasn’t moving.

I’m on the cell calling the cops, Honda’s asking E who I’m calling – I can tell this is a person I do not want to speak to.

With everybody fine and the cops en route, I just stay strapped in. Nothing to do now but wait. Corolla lady gets that and goes back into her car where it’s warm. Honda lady is a little more worked up. Having done the accident thing two months ago, I’m already getting out my license and proof of insurance.

Honda does the “I should stand outside for awhile” thing that seems sensible after an accident. Since its snowing, we stay inside and wait.

The cop shows up and starts with Honda. I can relate to that moment. Last time, I’d blown it. I knew I’d blown it. There wasn’t much to say.

Honda woman clearly has a lot to say. Not that it will do her any good at all. You rear end a stopped vehicle, you get written up. This I know.

Our turn, I’m worried that the cop is on the driver’s side of our car, next to the traffic. I offer to get out and do the interview on the sidewalk. She’s okay with standing next to moving cars.

Okay. So I give her my cards, tell her what happened, tell her we’re okay – and she goes around to the safe side of the car to get the names of everyone else in the car.

Good thing, too. Right after she gets all the names, another accident happens right next to us.

Same damn thing. One car misses the fact that the car in front of them has stopped and-

Bam! They hit and-

Bam! Push that car into a third.

Our cop calls it in and runs over to the third car, where a distraught looking mom is getting out and crawling into the backseat to retrieve her baby.

The driver of the car that started this new mess gets out, some young girl, and they start doing what we just got through: “you okay?”

An ambulance arrives almost immediately – apparently the baby got splashed with hot coffee in the impact, along with another passenger. No impact injuries.

The other three vehicles now pull in front of our three. Six cars in a line, flanked by a debris field of taillights and headlights.

It’s starting to sink in – this van has 15,000 miles on it and I’ve owned it for less than two months. Hell, less than one month – I think. And now it’s been rear-ended.

I get out and finally look at the back end. Our bumper’s hanging off like a drag chute, but we’re drivable.

Cop apologizes for the delay, but it’s easy to understand. Two accidents at once is a bit of a deal. After awhile, she comes back and gives me my cards back, and tells me the same stuff the last cop did. Honda lady is being cited – just like last time, only last time was me. I ask if this intersection has a lot of this kind of thing. Cop lady says “This is a terrible intersection, people come over the hill and suddenly they have to stop. This happens a lot.”

We hit urgent care to have the kids checked up on – and they both appear to be fine. We decide to have dinner out, since we’ve missed lunch and most of us are starving.

So, we go to our usual place. I’m coming down the hill towards a stop sign where we’ll be turning left. I start to slow down –

-except I don’t. The van maintains its speed, and I feel the staccato of the ABS kick in.

We’re on ice, cruising towards an intersection, and there’s there is no way we will stop. I reflexively take my foot off the brake and hit it again.

No change in speed, we’re going through this stop sign. I look up to see what to expect. Fortunately, at this intersection, we only have to worry about traffic from the left.

I can see one car heading towards us. The only way they hit us is if we slow down.

I speed up.

We blow through the stop sign, and are immediately rewarded with clean pavement.

I don’t even know if the oncoming car noticed us – but I’m replaying that in my mind, using different scenarios. I was coming down the hill too fast. It’s snowing.

I’m an idiot. Two hours after getting rear-ended, I almost get us broadsided.

We hit the restaurant, and I do the insurance tango. My at-fault cost us $100 more a year, no telling what a no-fault within two months will do to us.

Plus deductible, plus replacing child seats, plus…

Un-be-effing-lievable.

We should have stayed in bed.

R.I.P. Max

It's official: The Maxima is totaled.

We'll be looking for vehicle number two as soon as we figure out:

1) How much we're getting for dead Max.
2) What the heck we want to replace it with.

Flat tire karma

On at least three occasions, I've been driving along - lost in my own head when I see some other driver, honking and waving.

What's your problem, buddy?

Then I'll see them pointing downward and mouthing a word. They'll start rolling down the window - and it's evident that this isn't road rage - they're genuinely trying to get something across to me.

So, I roll down the window.

"Hey, your tire's low!"

Snapped out of driving coma, I'd thumbs up and pull over and stare at the latest manifestation of neglecting my car.

The simple act of flagging me down saved me some dollars and possibly worse.
These people were nice.

I'd like to thank them - but, of course, they're just gone.

---

It was this spirit of indebtedness that got me typing today - at home on Friday afternoon.

Rewind. 7:48 am. Taking the boy to day care.

I swing onto Hwy 51, southbound and I'm behind some guy in a sedan. His car is throwing a lot of white smoke, but this is a cold day and that's what cars do when they've just started up in cold weather.

Then I notice that sedan guy's car is smoking on the left, away from his tailpipe. I'm right behind him so I just keep watching his car. It looks like the smoke is coming from his wheel.

I look closer. It is. His car is leaning heavily towards his left rear tire. I see a chunk of rubber come off and roll onto the shoulder.

Sedan guy is blissfully unaware.

I'm coming up on my turn, so I pull into the left turn lane. Sedan guy is slowing up, still smoking - still clueless.

I'm just about pulling even with him, trying to think of what's the fastest way to tell him about his tire. I reach for the horn and-

-and I plow right into a Ford Focus in my left turn lane.

Ford goes forward to smack into a pickup. I turn to see the boy's okay. "What was that?!" he asks.

No airbags popped, so I can see our hood is pushed up like a bubble. The guy in the Ford gets out. I try to do the same and the damn door is jammed. I kick it open and ask if he's okay. He is. So's the driver of the truck.

Ford says "Wow, that was fast."

I start to ask what was fast when I see the cop. It's been less than thirty seconds since impact. Yeah, that was fast.

I fork over my drivers license, and get back in the car with the boy. He's good, just wondering what happened. "I want this car to move," he says. I explain as best I can.

He asks to hear Tchaikovsky, so I fire up the iPod. So long as he has music, he's good.

I stay in the car. No point talking with the other drivers. What would you say, anyway? The cop writes me a citation, and is generally a nice guy.

My front end is ruined - but the car will move. Never fails, does it - just yesterday Jen was telling me how nice this car rode. Kiss of death.

I call into work and tell them I won't be in. The car limps to day care, and I go home to deal with the insurance types.

---

So here we are, at home. The car's off to the garage - no word on if it's totaled or not.

We're a one car family again.

Dammit.