How I spent my Valentine's Day evening.
The tale starts, as these things often do, a couple of weeks prior to Valentine's Day.
After driving to work one day, I noticed wisps of steam escaping from under the hood, and thought nothing much of it; it wasn't volumes, so I disregarded it as snow or something.
Then two weeks ago, it was deathly cold (-15 F). I stopped off at a store and left the car running, in order to let the interior warm up a bit. When I came out of the store, cool air was coming from my heater. Huh. The heat came back as I was down the road. I decided to check the coolant system and added about a gallon of anti-freeze/coolant.
Then this week, I noticed that it was steaming more when I stopped, so I resolved to keep the radiator filled and check out everything when it wasn't 0 F out, and that looked like this weekend.
On Thursday night I stopped off at a place called Fleet Farm and bought some anti-freeze and three quarts of oil, as I hadn't checked that for a while. I opened the hood and checked my oil. Two quarts low. Yikes! I loaded in two quarts and checked the radiator. It was hard to see, so I went inside my car for the rechargeable mini flashlight I keep in the cigar lighter/accessory port.
I turned on the tiny krypton light and looked in the radiator cap. I was about 12 inches low on coolant. I took an empty coolant gallon jug and went inside to get it half-filled with water in the men's room. I came out, mixed the stuff and poured it in. the radiator took most of it, the overflow reservoir took the rest. Fine, I said, this will last me to the weekend. I closed the hood and got in my car, putting the little flashlight back into the accessory port.
And blew a fuse.
The fuse that blew was for the radio, the accessory port and, unbeknownst to me, and the alarm buzzers for lights and keys, etc. I decide 9 p.m. in a parking lot at 10 degrees F not the time to replace a fuse under the dashboard.
On Friday morning, it was cloudy and blustery. A light snow was falling. I turned on my lights for safety (and because it is the law in Minnesota). I stopped at Burger King for a crossandwich so I could break a 20 for use at work. As I waited there, I smelled a foul odor and the steam was billowing out as usual. They were 3 minutes into lunch, so no crossandwich, I bought a burger and kept going.
After work, at 7:45 p.m. or so, I went out to my car, got in, turned the key.
Nothing.
Not a click. Not a sound. Not a light. I had left my lights on all day.
After briefly considering my AAA road club, I headed back inside to find someone to jump-start my car. One of my supervisors decided to lend his car to the cause and I had cables. We went out and hooked his tiny batter up to my car. Nothing. I checked my battery cables. Loose, I tightened. A turn of the key elicited a groan. I then made triple sure I had a good connection, and tried again.
We decided to get someone with a bigger vehicle to speed up the process. We came back out and I tried it.
It started; we didn't need the guy with a truck.
Happy I was going to make it home, I put away the cables, thanked my supervisor and drove off for home.
One block.
The smell was back. And the steam. Hoo boy, the steam. I pulled into a warehouse area with good lighting and dashed out to look under the hood. There was coolant everywhere and a horrible sound like seized bearings. I surmised "water pump." I filled the radiator to the top and drove back to work and called AAA Minnesota road service.
I have the extra long distance membership and I wanted my car towed home, about 47 miles. They had to find a driver ready to take that much time, and said it might be an hour before they could get to me.
Well, I wish I could have done overtime, but it was not approved. I slogged around the office with my soggy tennis shoes and backpack; having been told the tow truck would give me 5 minutes notice.
So, I waited.
Ate some chicken I had left in the office freezer from the day before when I couldn't eat it all. Lucky that I hadn't remembered to take it home.
And waited.
90 minutes in, I called back. They had had trouble getting a wrecker from my town to come and get me, so they were getting someone else. They would be there in 10 minutes or so.
So, I waited.
Ate a few little valentine hearts someone left out for us in the lunchroom.
And waited.
At 10 p.m., I called again. Customer service rep pulled up something with my telephone number from 6 years ago. I told them I was not at home, and that wasn't my current home telephone number anyway. She finally found my call and said they were having some trouble. I gave my office hot phone number again and she said they would call me back
So, I waited.
And waited.
10 minutes later, the supervisor of their call center called me and apologized, and said the tow driver was actually being pulled from yet another site, as they did not say the tow truck had other calls to make and had they known that, they would have gotten another. He should be there any minute.
So, I waited.
And waited.
At 11 p.m. I called again. "He's having trouble finding you, this isn't his normal area."
So, I waited.
Finally about 11:30, or 4 hours since I had finished work for the day, the tow truck arrived.
So I go to get into his cab, and he has a passenger. It turns out his wife or girlfriend is with him, and I'm thinking I'm going to have to ride a bus somewhere, and get a greyhound bus home? Nope. She'll ride in the back "seat" of the king cab.
I chatted with them as we drove. Nice couple. Interesting valentine's day for them.
When I get home, it is past midnight, I still had Farscape and Stargate to watch, but I waited for cousin Steve to take a look at my car, as he was up.
Turns out that not only do I have a water pump out, it wasn't the only problem.
The smell? That was my alternator being fr