Did I mention that Lisa was in a car accident a couple months ago? I see I did. You’ll notice that was back in August. Lisa finally has the minivan back. If only it had been totaled…
The Odyssey’s hood had been collapsed, which means lots of bodywork with little internal damage. At least, that’s what you’d like to think. But once a vehicle has been hit, it’s rarely ever the same. With the accident occuring on a Friday afternoon, parts being on backorder, and Labor Day creating a short week it was something like 3 weeks to a month before we even got to take it to the shop. I don’t even remember what the delays were once they had it, but we didn’t get to pick it up until the middle of last month. And then it died.
That’s right, it died the night Lisa and I were rushing off to see Franz Ferdinand. It shuddered a bit on the way to her job, and then refused to start again once there. All sorts of wacky stuff going on – the dashboard would blink like crazy just by opening a door. This was not a dead battery or a bad starter, but something electrical seemed to be toast. So they tow it back to the shop and proclaim, “IT WAS OUT OF GAS!”
Uh, no way. Half a tank of gas does not go in 4 days of limited use – even in today’s economy. But the mechanic insisted, much to the irritation of one Lisa, that she had let the tank go dry. So, after fixing a headlight that was also faulty, they cleaned her up, put half a tank of gas in, and… let her die. She was leaking like… like a minivan with a very leaky fuel line or something (don’t you just love analogies?) At least it died on them, and not while Lisa was on the Parkway. Plus it left us smug and vindicated!
After fixing some switches and such, we finally brought the car home last week – albeit a tad shakey. So yesterday it went back to Honda for some more work. Just a routine oil change, but the tires were also unbalanced – which caused the shimmying and whatnot.
There’s still a bit of a smell, and Lisa is getting her… road legs… back. But at least our household might have somewhat of a return to normalcy – in other words, I won’t be driving all over this dman state all week long anymore.