Car Go Beep Beep

Why is it, whenever things finally seem to be going well, that your car breaks down or needs a major repair? It’s like Murphy’s Law or something, if Murphy was a mechanic. I was already due to get my winter tires swapped out, an appointment I made this past week for 2 weeks from now because everybody and his brother are doing the same thing, even though there’s a chance that we’re still stuck in false spring, the season right before second winter. At the time, it felt like my brakes on my 12 year old Sonic were a little shaky, but not squealing or anything, so I said to the guy at the tire place, “While you have the tires off, can you check the brakes?” “Sure thing,” he said. Everything was fine until a couple of days ago. I was driving into another town after work. It had been a wonderful morning—someone had bought a copy of MY book AND asked me to sign it. Then I picked up this cute outfit from someone on Facebook Marketplace, and when I said, “It’s $35, right?” she said, “Oh, just give me $20,” and I was feeling so lucky and upbeat. But on the way home, my car started to shudder. The faster I went, the worse it got. I was freaking out so I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken:

Me: There’s something really wrong with my car!
Ken: Pull over.
Me: But I’m right in the middle of town in heavy traffic.
Ken: I’m googling “What would cause my car to shake?” Says it could be a problem with a lugnut. Are you missing any?
Me: How would I know if one of my lugnuts is missing?! I’m driving!

I finally found a gas station and pulled in to check. Sure enough, my right front tire was sans one lugnut. How the hell that happened, I have no idea. Ken called our neighbour, who is also an excellent mechanic but who doesn’t do tire swaps, and he said to take a lugnut from our daughter’s car to get me home. I was finally able to pull over on a side road out in the country after white-knuckling it for several minutes, and sat there waiting for Ken. He got there pretty quickly and checked out the tire:

Ken: You’re not missing a lugnut. The cap is off but the lugnut is still there.
Me: So I never have to type the word lugnut again?
Ken: Not if you don’t want to.
Me: What a relief.

Then he started hoiking on my tires, reaching in and rocking them and whatnot, and sending me into full-blown “what if my tire snaps off and the car falls on his arms and dismembers him?” panic attack. The only thing to do at that point was to attempt the drive home with him following me, going 30 shaky kilometres an hour, which is like a little over 18 miles an hour, with our hazard lights on, and people honking at us. It took over 45 minutes. And since it seems like the situation is way more complicated that just “having a look when my tires are off”, our mechanic neighbour is going to take it to his shop tomorrow. (Update: he looked at it in the driveway and immediately realized that my brake calliper had seized).

So like I said, every time things seem like they’re going well, and I finally feel a little ahead financially, one of the cars breaks down. But at least I have a new cool swear word to use: “Aw, lugnut.”

46 thoughts on “Car Go Beep Beep”

  2. There’s an old brain teaser I remember from back in the day about a guy who gets a flat tire at night, and someone in the middle of changing the tire manages to lose all of the lugnuts. This was in the days before cellphones, so the question was “how can he get put the tire back on and get home safely?” Answer: Take a lugnut off each of the other three tires and use them. I guess, like everything else with cars these days, you can’t rig up something like that anymore without putting yourself in danger or having the car’s evil computer locking up on you…

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  3. barbaramullenix's avatar barbaramullenix says:

    Whatever the hell a brake calliper is. And how can he know that just by looking at it? That’s some kind of magic that only few people have – in all the expensive categories (plumbers, electricians, mechanics).

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  4. The bright side is you got to use the words “lugnut” and “caliper”, which are great Scrabble words. You also have a neighbour who’s a mechanic which has got to have its advantages. Not that I’d ever take advantage of a neighbour, or anyone else, but, while I can do a lot of minor fixes replacing wiper blades always confounds me. Such a simple thing and yet I always have to get a professional to do it because I’ve asked my neighbour and he says “I can’t figure it out either.”

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  5. On the bright side you got to use “lugnut” and “caliper” which are great in Scrabble. And you have a neighbour who’s a mechanic which is a nice thing. I can do a lot of simple things with the car but changing windshield wipers always baffles me. Such a simple thing and yet I always have to leave it to a professional. I once asked my neighbour and he said “I can’t figure it out either.”
    We should have called Ken.

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    • Calling Ken is always the best thing to do. I’m so lucky—he drove all the way out to help, then followed me home to make sure the wheels literally didn’t fall off! But windshield wipers are notoriously hard to replace—I know that from experience!

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  7. “Hold on to your lugnuts, it’s time for an overhaul.” Jim Carrey, The Mask.
    That’s a sporty lookin’ number you got there, it have a throaty race car sound to it?
    Sure hope any replacement parts don’t have to come from the US.

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  11. We have a Ken in our family too – my son-in-law. He is a mechanic so when it comes to vehicles he is our go-to guy. My first call would have been to my husband though who would have either picked me up and had the car towed to a mechanic or driven the car home and let me drive his.
    P.S. My husband’s reply to your story would be “If it has tits or moving parts sooner or later it’s gonna give you problems.” LOL!

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  16. I love the energy in your writing. It’s my theory that Murphy’s Law things like these get less frequent as a person ages. There are only so many lugnutty things that can happen and after a certain point they’ve all happened to you. But good things come in a much greater variety, so they still can occur. 🙂

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  18. That is a great swearword. I shall incorporate it into my repertoire.
    I’m with you on the winter tire thing, I never switch til after the May long weekend. Glad your neighbour was able to help. Hope its not too expensive to repair.

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  20. rakeshkdahiya40's avatar rakeshkdahiya40 says:

    Mechanics can always be trusted upon to find a large number of problems, all needing expensive spare parts – which will need to be ordered!

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