Just before I left for work there was a weather report on the radio
about a severe thunderstorm that was drenching two counties just to the
west of the one I live in. There was some wind and hail with it but
mostly it was dumping rain. I thought if I hurried I might make it to
work before it hit Lincoln.
The sun was shining bright and clear when I pulled out of the
driveway. The western sky was dark gray but I was headed east. By the
time I had driven five blocks the sky behind me was black, although I
was still in sunshine. I knew my chances of getting to work ahead of
the storm weren't good. I had an umbrella in the car but this was the
kind of rain that found ways around an umbrella.
Sure enough, just as I pulled into my usual parking spot, the wind
picked up and the rain began to fall in sheets. My mind was on getting
to my building as quickly as possible, before hail or lightning or
worse rain, and I fled the car as quickly as I could.
An hour later I got a call "smoke or steam" was coming from under
the hood of my car. I had left the car running and it had overheated.
It
is the stupidest thing I have ever done. Stupid with a capital WTF.
There's nothing else I can say about it. I can't provide an explanation
because I can't imagine having done it.
Whoever had seen the steam had called the fire department. They
were beyond good about it. In fact, the fireman who checked it out to
make sure it was steam and not smoke spent an extra few minutes talking
to me about how it wasn't going to be a big deal. "Let it cool, fill it
with antifreeze and I bet it will start right up." I don't know who he
was, but that little bit of reassurance at that moment meant as much as
if he had hauled my stupid ass out of a burning building.
Knowing as little as I do about cars and how one thing affects
another, I worried that I had destroyed pretty much the entire engine.
My luck has been running in that direction lately.
I had to go
into a meeting as soon as I got back to my office, but I had time to
leave a message at Keith's, telling what had happened and asking him to
come in at noon and take me over to Tammy's. Last week that wouldn't
have mattered -- Cooper could have stayed outside all day -- but today
the heat index was over 100 degrees and there was no way I was going to
let him stay out in that kind of heat.
I got a hold of Tammy after my meeting and she promised that she
could take a long lunch and run home to let Cooper in, so I didn't have
to bother Keith with the extra errand.
In this heat, though,
he stayed out and messed with the car for over an hour. He filled it
with antifreeze and ran it to see what happened. It was immediately
apparent that the overflow tank had to be replaced because there was a
hole in the top of it about the size of a #2 pencil. It had developed
during the hours that it was cooling off.
I was ready to have it towed to Sam's but Keith was pretty sure
that he could replace the tank. I hated to ask him to do it, especially
in this heat. I got him to use the phone in my office to call Sam, and
while they talked it over, I had to go to another really short meeting.
Keith went
to the hardware store and bought a screw about the size of the hole in
the tank. It plugged the leak well enough to allow pressure to build
normally, and that helped diagnose another problem -- the fan wasn't
running properly. It needed to go to Sam's. With the hole plugged, I was able to drive the car
down to Sam's without a problem. Hewill replace the tank, check the
fan and also try to figure out what's wrong the air conditioner (could
be related to the fan as well).
Given all that I own up to here, it might be surprising to know that I have a real aversion to embarrassment. I can't think of anything that causes more personal stress than embarrassing myself, so this was quite a day. Everyone who could have laughed or said something to make me feel worse, didn't, and that helped. So all in all it wasn't such a bad day.
