My Friday afternoon – July 31, 2015
101 degrees – 5:30 pm – Rush Hour
I went to the shipping place to drop off 2 large cartons of linens to send
to a neighbor in Vero Beach, FL since there is no more room in the Impala
to bring my possessions. Plus this house is not a safe place to leave clothing
and destructibles for very long as the house will be unoccupied & there are
wildlife living in the crevices between the 1st & 2nd floors as well as in
the side walls & attic. Our back yard backs up to a wooded creek where
the raccoons, squirrels & many forms of wildlife live & breed. During the
hottest part of summer & coldest part of winter they enter the house through
the chimney (you can hear them enter & scamper about). Several times in the
past year repairs to the exterior have been made & they have repeatedly chewed
those repairs into a crawl space again. Evidence of their life in the attic is
obvious: damaged duct work, their waste all over the insulation in the attic,
and I total 4-5 squirrels & raccons that have been chased out of the house over
the past 2-4 years. The latest squirrel I found by getting into my bed at night
stretching out my feet & chasing something that was a speeding blur out of the
comforter in my bed – as it ran out of the bedroom it left a trail of very
strong waste all over the carpet & the clothing in it’s path.
That clothing is permanently ruined so as I say I am shipping all the things I
would like to see again to Vero Beach where the condo is maintained through a
maintenance fee. I can assure you there is no crawl space in the condo for any
wildlife to enter. In an abandoned or unoccupied house the house will become a
wildlife sanctuary & all my possessions will become damaged through either the
waste you can’t wash out ever or chewing & nesting in them. So basically before
leaving for Florida I have to either donate everything, throw it away or take it
where I am going. I have lived in this house since 1989, raised 2 sons here & there
is too much to fit in an Impala so it is all being shipped ahead of me. The cost
is not cost prohibitive & the only things not being shipped are irreplaceable &
too dear to trust to shipping or breakable or too heavy to be cost effective.
So as I say I had dropped the latest 2 cartons at the shipping store. Had come
all the way home when I realized I had not dropped a piece of mail at the PO
so I headed back out in my car to the PO. It was 102 out, it was 5:30 PM on a
Friday afternoon. Very heavy traffic, I had the a/c blowing on high & had to
put the car in park at every red light to put my foot on the accelerator just
to keep the cool air coming out of the vents. It is fine in motion but at a
red light it is blowing less cool air. So the light turns green, I put the car
in drive & it rolls backwards trying to run into the car behind me. I put it
back in park. Try again & it rolls in reverse again. I put it in park. Turn off
the ignition. Turn back on the ignition & it won’t stop & start back up. I turn
on the blinkers. Right across the street is a quiktrip & these 2 men start running
across the street towards me & tell me to put it in neutral & they will push it
into the gas station. They did. The steering worked. So I park to the side of
the station. Put it in park & the car starts rolling backwards into the entrance
which again was heavily trafficked. So I put on the emergency brake & that worked.
I go inside the gas station & call George the registered owner of the car & he
comes to drive me home & help get it towed to either the house or the shop. we
didn’t want to tow it to the shop & leave it parked over the weekend not knowing
whether it might roll or get broken into.
It takes an hour for the tow to come being Friday afternoon. George drives me home
with all things urgent taken along to the house & returns to give the tow truck
driver the car & money & now we will have to see where to take it in on Monday.
George says it is something that fell off between the gear shift & way it speaks
to the car instead of being the whole transmission.
It is a 2004 Chevy Cavalier with 105,000 miles on it. If it is too expensive a
repair it probably won’t be worth fixing. I don’t know how he knows it is a piece
that fell off. But the weirdest thing is the gear shift just moves freely across
the gears without clicking or needing the thing depressed to move it between gears
& he says that it was in some particular gear when it broke off so that is why it
keeps rolling. Like I say if it is the whole transmission it won’t be worth it for
a 105,000 mile car.
During the time waiting for George I sat on the floor of the Quiktrip with my back
against the beverage cooler. And of course the passing females all kept asking what
happened. I would think it was fairly obvious that it was some sort of roadside
emergency but who knows. It was 101 in the shade. I am just grateful I have dad’s
old Impala in the garage. It has 89,000 miles & is a 2006 it was rear-ended in the
summer of 2013 while I was sitting at a red light. State Farm called it a total loss,
tried to take it from me in return for a check & I changed the title state to TX, kept
the car & got a smaller amount from State Farm so now the trunk lid is held down
with bungee cords, & whenever outside the garage it is held down with bungee cords &
crash wrap never having been repaired since the repair estimates are more than what
I got from State Farm.
I have the money to afford a new car in savings but not enough for the number of cars
I will need before the savings runs out & I am not able to find gainful employment even
with high schoolers jobs. I am 63 years old & will be elibible for full retirement
benefits from Social Security at 66 but it will be about 400 dollars a month before
the medicare deductible, the supplemental insurance deductible & I really wanted to
pad the kitty before 66 but I have had 5-6 years of unemployment because of caring
for my alzheimer’s parents (I am an only child) & before that being a stay-at-home
mom so I really cannot afford to buy a new car even though the savings is there because
those savings will be needed for elder care, health care, housing, food, & utilities.
I have tried so many open positions in this area but I am giving up & moving to
FL in the crash wrapped car to try retail at Xmas time. Maybe if I sell enough credits
I will be kept on after. Of course I will be getting 5 hours a week which won’t help
anything except the employment history. Which I guess is something.
smokythecat 