THE CAR SAGA

I haven't posted in a while. Why? Because I've been waiting for a saga to unfold. An epic tale of consumerism gone awry, a breakdown in the system of cash for goods. Seemingly longer than the time between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, this is a story that has been a whole MONTH in the making.

Yes, it's high time I told The Car Saga.

CHAPTER 1: DESTRUCTION OF THE OLD

This story began on the fifth of June of this year. We were driving our 1991 Dodge Spirit back from Banff, after a pleasant overnight stay in that town courtesy of the Welcome Wagon folk. Hey, free hotel room-- why not get away for a night?

On the way back, our engine boiled over-- steam everywhere, smack dab in the equal distance between Calgary and Banff. We couldn't understand why-- we had plenty of fluids, and our car was patently not leaking any, though in my frustration I sure was-- and realizing that calling for a tow would prove prohibitively expensive for two contractors (and also having a four month old baby in the car), we opted to just add coolant and hope for the best.

We "leapfrogged" our way back to Calgary-- waiting for the engine to cool down, adding more coolant, and driving until it boiled over again-- until we finally came to rest across the highway from a Petro-Canada station just outside the city.

God bless cell phones, we were able to call Marci's parents to come pick us up (and also ask her mechanic Dad to have a look at the car.)

The car's radiator had a hole in it the size of Arkansas, and my little "leapfrogging" trick had managed to burn out all the valves in the engine. The car would never start again-- a classic case of the Spirit being willing but the Dodge being weak. Ba-dump-bump.

So we towed it to a friend's garage -- OK Tire on 16th Ave and 42nd Street N.W., the least I can do is give them a plug-- and they said they'd look at it and assess the damage.

The next day they phoned us with the news: Car repair would cost $1600.00 at least -- new radiator, belts and hoses-- and that was just the stuff they could SEE without taking the whole engine apart. We were now faced with the realization that we had NO car, and that any repairs to our 1991 automobile were going to cost more than the car was worth.

Posted by Agent M at July 05, 2003 12:17 PM