Cut to the side of the road, the part where you are only supposed to stop in an emergency. Camera halts on two women, one has obviously a nervous breakdown since she is kicking a twelve year old blue Ford Escort repeatedly, screaming "Fuckin' piece of shit!" and "I cannot believe this!" again and again.
Cut to the two women standing on the side of the highway waving - hoping one of the cars passing by at a high speed will stop. A pickup truck slows down, stops and the blonde woman runs up to the driver's side and tries to explain what happened. In English. The driver - middle aged, wearing a checkered shirt, an overall AND a baseball cap - stares blankly at her till the other woman - a petite with a delicate complexion - walks up and starts talking in French.
He understands and is willing to help. He also has a cell phone. He calls the CAA - luckily the blonde woman's husband thought it would be a good idea to join, the car's a little old, after all - and has them send a tow truck. Merci beaucoup, Monsieur!!
The blonde woman has calmed down a bit by then, she is still upset because the fuckin' piece of shit was just in the shop two days before to have winter tires installed, the oil changed and everything to be done that the car (and its drivers) will make it through the winter, but she is willing to get back in the car, sit and wait for the tow truck which is supposed to arrive in 15 to 45 minutes. The petite starts to knit. The blonde is way too agitated to be even thinking about it.
Barely 15 minutes later a tow truck shows up, a taciturn man gets out and without much ado starts to organize the towing of the fuckin' piece of shit. The two women squeeze in the front of the truck with the driver after it's decided to drive to the next repair shop which is in the godforsaken little town close by.
A very nice looking young mechanic explains in French that the timing belt (not being very car-literate and less so in English the blonde goes: WTF is a timing belt? in her head) is broken, and that, sadly, he is not able to repair the car himself because he has lots of other cars to fix that got to him first. At this time it turns out that the tow truck man is not so taciturn after all - he talks to the mechanic just fine.
Follows a tow truck ride into town to the repair shop the fuckin' piece of shit just has been to - and money for the service of the tow truck changes hands. There will be lots more money to be exchanged once the timing belt has been repaired, though that might take till the weekend.
Here ends part one of the story I like to call "We go on a road trip - NOT!".
2 comments:
timing belts are muy expensive. My condolences to you and the F.P.S. I found that my newish (2000) Toyota isn't scheduled for a new one til "75,000 to 90,000" miles. At least another year. but it'll be $800 at that time. I think it's equivalent to change a toddlers diapers when he's dressed for snow... You have to strip the whole thing down.
Perhaps you'll knit while you aren't driving. Stash reduction?
i think that knitting en groupe will help you to recover from this harrowing experience. !!
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