Poor Darby

My poor car. Picture this: it's 6:00pm, my Friday, I am thrilled as I get ready to make the last long commute of the week...thrilled that is, until I go to start my car and lo and behold- nothing happens! Are you kidding? Unfortunately, no. So I go back into the office, with a look on my face that my closest co-workers have seen once before- about a month and a half ago when I had to return to the office one afternoon after I realized my car had a flat tire.

So I call AAA, automatically get put on hold for over 10 minutes, and then have to wait a half an hour for someone to show up. Whatever his name was, AAA guy #1 (AAAG1), guessed the battery was the problem and was able to jump start the car right away, so my plan was to drive it several miles to the Sears where I had visited before to get a new tire. I figured, okay, I know where that place is (conveniently located at South Coast Plaza, Nordstrom shoe department-adjacent), so I'll just go over there, get a new battery installed (and maybe a new pair of shoes for my trouble), and be on my way. Things could be worse. A-ha! Not so fast!

Luckily, a very thoughtful co-worker offered to follow me, just in case, and thank goodness she did, because my poor car totally died again, not 2 blocks from the mall. So we pull off the main street onto a side streed, and I call AAA, again, and get put on hold, again, and then wait, again, this time for a tow. My very thoughtful coworker waited with me. Whatever his name was, AAA guy #2 (AAAG2), arrived pretty quickly, and as soon as I told him the story, quickly made the determination that it had to be the alternator. I'm sure I made a deflated, audible heavy sigh of a noise of some kind at that point. Then, after as much deliberation as one could do while AAAG2 was waiting there, we decided that the best idea would be to have the car towed back to my house and then I could deal with this (call AAA yet again, wait yet again, and get towed yet again) to a mechanic TBD, tomorrow (my day off). Luckily (ha!) I have AAA "Plus", which allows me 4 tows of up to 100 miles per year. So, off we go, me and AAAG2, 40 or so miles north on the 405. Good times. He was nice, at least, and the traffic had pretty much subsided by that time, so it wasn't too bad...

Well anyway, fast-forward to me now, safe and semi-sound, at home. I got the name of a trustworthy mechanic (oxymoron?) in Santa Monica, recommended by a friend of mine, so hopefully I can get poor Darby there tomorrow morning, and hopefully they will be able to fix her without TOO big of a hit to my wallet (seeing as I just paid around $900 in car "maintenance" last month). Please cross your fingers for me that this is the case. Otherwise, I will cry, and worse- be cast into even deeper debt, due to all the pairs of shoes I will need to buy myself in order to somehow lessen the pain (we call this Shoe Therapy). I honestly don't know how much more of this I can take. I love my car, but holy cow! How much more of this can I take? Poor Darby.