Saturday, May 22, 2010

Downtown character

Early this week, after work, my phone told me I had an incoming text message.  Lise wanted to know if she'd done anything to make her papa or me mad.  What?  Huh?  I texted her back, "no, not at all. why?"  She had sent us both 3 or so texts during the day, but neither of us had heard or checked our phones during our work day.
That's when I learned her car had overheated on the bridge and there wasn't enough time before work to get her car towed.  She parked it at Riverfront Park downtown and asked if we could go take a look.
Norm and I ate dinner before heading downtown.  Just minutes after we opened the Lumina's hood, a young man appeared, asking what the problem was.  He told us all about the horrible frailties of that particular engine and how it was most likely done for.  We explained that the car had had that issue repaired already, but then he pulled a plug out to show us there was water in the engine.  He's a mechanic, he said, he's seen this before.  He went on to tell us that he just moved from North Dakota and that the best car to own was a Toyota.  Those thousands of people with the unexpected acceleration problem?  He said that was the driver's fault, not Toyota's.  We listened to him tell us about the granola eaters in California, while we continued with checking out the car, until his friend was ready to leave the park.  Whew!  Thank goodness!  I'd had about as much of his negative energy as I could graciously handle.
And after hearing all that, N and I were greatly relieved to hear the Lumina just needed a new freeze plug.  In the meantime, I'll admit,  I'd already begun a used car search.

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