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.”
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