Another Reason Why I Hate the End of October

Funny, my last post was about Christmas in October, and now here it is just after Christmas and I have an October story for you, from many years ago:

An Essay in 5,000,000 ranting words or less

Last night I had a little unplanned adventure. While I was driving southbound on I-5 (avoiding 520 which is even worse than usual on dark, rainy nights such as last night) on my way to an Eastside birthday party that promised crab as well as birthday cake my driver side windshield wiper arm failed. It's impressive how much water accumulates on a windshield at 50 something mph (it was still rush hour traffic). I decided the wise thing to do would be to pull over and see if it was fixable. I pull over to the shoulder, put the hazards on, get out my passenger side door (but still have go around on the driver's side to really look at the wiper). Upon examining the arm, I find it is all floopsy (it's a technical term, trust me). I don't see anything to be done so I exit at Union St (downtown Seattle), pull into a 3 minute load/unload spot and call AAA.

I'm told that if I deem the car drivable, I should try getting it to a service station where a mechanic will examine it. I am told I'm approximately equidistant between my two choices -- Mercer & Westlake or Broadway & Pine. I opt for the first as driving uphill in pouring rain without a driver-side windshield wiper sounds less fun than just driving without a driver-side windshield wiper. So, I get back in my car and, being very stressed out and in a very bright place, fail to turn on my headlights. Discover the headlight problem after several people honk at me (at first I thought it might just be me driving with the window open and using my squidgy at intersections).

 It, of course, starts pouring at this point. There is a certain rate of rain where the windshield is coated evenly enough that it is perfectly fine to see through. Generally though my vision was blurred by uneven water coating or by ripples that appeared in it due to wind. I desperately would like to be able to clear it every now and then but there's just no way to. I get slightly lost going to the first service station so I pull into a parking lot (bottoming out in the process) and look at a map. Get to the service station and am told the mechanics leave at 5 or so (it's a little after 6 by now) but the attendant knows of a place on Capitol Hill, the second option AAA had given me, where there are mechanics 'til 8 or 9 pm. So, I bite the bullet and drive up Denny.

It's raining pretty good, the world turns very impressionistic. I make it to the second service station where I am told the mechanics have gone home. I call AAA and inform them there are no mechanics and they agree to send a truck out to me. In the meantime, I decide I might as well try to call my mechanic (being a Saab owner, I'm never optimistic that ANYONE will be able to identify my car, let alone be able to fix it) to see if he knows what the problem is. It's 6:30 + but my mechanic is still in. I start to tell him the problem but he finishes the sentence for me. It apparently happens to older Saabs. A pulley has come off the shaft and if he reattaches it with a pin, it will never happen again. He can do this first thing tomorrow morning if I bring my car in.

I wait in the car for the AAA guy, knowing it's probably a lost cause. He looks and tells me it's a lost cause but he might be able to rig something up. So, we traipse off to Bartell drug in search of fishing line, kite string, and the like. Once purchased, it's back to the Chevron where he ties the string through the back of the wiper blade and puts one end of the string through the driver's side window and the other through the passenger side window (the latter doesn't want to stay near me, so I tie it onto the steering wheel). This gives the ability to manually wipe my window by pulling on whichever side of the string pulls it in the necessary direction. So, I finally have a way to every now and then clear the windshield (at least on my side).

Driving this way is much less stressful but makes one terribly self-conscious. I decide to bring the car to my mechanics so it gets fixed right away. I had to walk several blocks to use a phone (I stopped in at a convenience store. When I asked if there was a phone I could use, they said, "Safeway. Four more blocks." and smiled. It was still raining out) The woman in the Safeway let me use her phone (the payphone is conveniently located on the sidewalk by the bus stop, totally exposed to the elements). I call my friend Sean who lives about a mile from there. He's not home, but his housemate Sara kindly offers to give me a ride home.

Moral of the story:

Since I've told this story to people, they've been telling me all sorts of interesting driving stories, some actually involving windshield wipers. From these stories, I've determined one thing: it's best to only operate your car on sunny days.