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| Comments on Friday 17 April 2009: |
| Best day ever, or A Series of Unfortunate Events. Jessica and I woke up early to go snorkeling off the Florida Keys. After an hour or so of driving, (1) the gear lever started refusing to go into random gears. No third gear for you! No third or fifth! Now you can have third and fifth but no second! Nor fourth! Hope you like having no first gear when you try to start again! This had happened before, and eventually resolved itself just from being left alone, so we stopped for a while at the side of the road, then set off again, but it was no better. Then (2) the gear lever jammed in third and wouldn't come out at all. We coasted into the entrance of a gas station with some lucky timing of passing through a red light only for a right turn, which was I think a legal manouver at that particular junction. After calling a towing company several times ((3) they went to the wrong place first, even given an exact address), a towtruck eventually arrived about two hours later. Snorkeling was thus cancelled. We were towed to a car dealership that deals in the appropriate type of car, where there were a short series of fortunate events! The problem was 'just' a snapped cable and a worn cable, not a melted transmission, so it would cost 'only' $800 to repair. But wait, fortunate event 2, there is a sale on labour at the moment! So it is 'only' $85 an hour, making it $530 or so to repair. But back to unfortunate events, (4) they don't have the parts so can't do it 'til the next day. We were intending to visit Jessica's niece in hospital nearby, and the dealership people said "oh, we'll have our driver take you." After about half an hour of trying to find the person who'd okayed that, it turned out that (5) the driver was out carting someone else around and after that would be having a lunch break. So Jessica called family who would be at the hospital to see if someone could pick us up. (While we waited we had a delightful car-dealership-courtyard-picnic.) Someone could indeed pick us up, but! He didn't realise I was there too. Jessica got into the car, he didn't notice me despite us both having come from right in front of the vehicle, so he promptly (6) ran over my foot with the rear tyre of the SUV as I was about to get in. Completing the series, (7) Jessica was unable to get anyone to cover for her at work, so a car was borrowed to return home, and another two hour drive each way must now be had to collect her car (and I'll have to drive one of the two cars back, which carries a not insignificant risk of added events what with having driven a grand total of about 3 minutes in the US and already screwing up the whole "driving on the wrong side" thing once. Though I believe it's obligatory to do that once, so at least I got it out of the way while I had a copilot.) My foot's okay, thanks for asking. Barely even bruised. [22:29] |