An update on my car (my stories just never end):
I left work about 3:00 yesterday. I got out of the city okay and was about ten minutes away from my freeway exit when the fan belt broke and the engine overheated. I pulled off to the right of the road and called my dad, who said he could be there in fifteen minutes. I was perfectly calm this whole time (which is a first for me - I would normally have been panicked and freaked out the moment the temperature gauge spiked to "H").
My dad pulled up and told me he was going to follow me the rest of the way and
that's when I freaked out. He was in his truck and I had my hands-free cell phone on and he started talking me through it. The problem is that my steering wheel was sticking, so I couldn't turn back onto the road. And I was panicked because I thought my car would overheat and blow up or something (and I had sat in the 100 degree August heat and at the start of rush hour). So, my dad and I switched - he drove my Explorer and I drove his truck. I followed my dad about 500 feet when he signaled and turned off the road. The engine started overheating again and we had to leave my car there, go to town and call a towing company to come get it.
My next problem was getting back to Salt Lake for work this morning. I ended up taking the old 1993 Buick LeSabre (I call her Dory - she's kind of an old "grandma" car) that I used to drive in college that just sits in the driveway now (well, it goes around town sometimes, but not too far). I was a little nervous about that because the last time I drove Dory, the engine started smoking. That was almost two years ago, but still --
Long story short, Dory got me home okay and I'm getting my Explorer back either today or tomorrow. And I probably should have just gone to a Ford dealer here in Salt Lake instead of risking a 30-mile trip.
The funny part is that, while Dory is reliable at getting me around, she needs some substantial body work done (she even has a couple of rusty "racing stripes" on the top). There are a lot of spots where the paint has been worn away and things like that. So, she's sitting in the parking lot with all these gleaming Civics and Malibus and what-have-you and she looks a little woebegone (I swear I heard a Prius snickering at me this morning).
Whatever. Dory runs, she works and I'm only going to have her for a few days. It's better than riding a bike. At least my parents had something I could use. I'm not complaining.
PS, Though my day was miserable, I did get some good news. My dad had a copy of the newspaper in his truck yesterday and I read the opinion page while he stopped at the bank. Much to my pleasant surprise, a
letter to the editor that I wrote a few days ago was printed! With my name! With what I wrote! There was actually more to it, but it's a newspaper and they can't print everything, so they had to condense something (I know how that goes). It's about some realigning going on with high school regions and which schools play who in sports and things. It's always been controversial and I have strong opinions about it. But it was cool to see my name in print when I didn't even expect it to be there (they must not have had very many LTEs yesterday or something).