Lenny Can't Help You Now
So, funny story.
We're driving back to Silver Spring when all of a sudden my brother's car exploded.
Let me start at the beginning.
Thursday afternoon on our way back from El Canelo (my last cheese dip in wooster, so sad) when Danni made the realization that on the way back from Silver Spring on Sunday, she would be driving by herself for 6 hours. Most people would be like, man, this is a huge bummer, but I guess I can sing along as loud as I want to the radio now. Not Danni. Danni falls asleep in the car. Even if she's the one driving. Plans, henceforth changed and Kate, darling that she is, borrowed her parents van to take all of my stuff out in. Upon realization that said van would not, in fact, hold all my stuff, plus my brother's stuff, plus four of us, I quickly called my dad to see if he would be willing to drive my brother out in addition to us taking the van. Needless to say, he suddenly had to work on Saturdays and could not get away. So my brother agreed to take his car (despite its unreliability) with all his stuff. We tried to talk him into meeting us in Wheeling rather than driving the 3 extra hours out of his way to Wooster, but he's afraid of getting lost (understandably) and so followed us from Wooster on Friday morning.
So things were going along nicely (ok, we did leave Wooster an hour later than planned, but whatever) up until about 5 hours into the trip. We were maybe less than 2 hours from Silver Spring when my brother's car, which I was riding in began to smoke. We quickly pulled off at exit 68 (on I-68, mind you) to inspect. It appeared that several quarts (that's possible, right?) of oil had exploded all over the insie of my brother's car. Fuck. We stood around for a few minutes trying to decide what to do- Danni called her husband and I called my dad, whereupon we determined that it wasn't oil on the inside of the car, but dirty antifreeze. Apparently this is better. Kate and my brother rode up the street a bit and went into a gas station to get the lowdown on garages. Fortunately, Danni, making up for her need to ride in the car with at least one other person, revealed that she had AAA. We called a tow and waited 2 hours (it was dark at that point) for him to arrive.
AAA let's you have 100 miles of free towing. It was very tempting to try for Silver Spring, but we settled for Gaithersburg instead (which is a town I will never return to.) We reorganized stuff into my brother's car so that the two of us would fit in the van on the short ride from G'burg to Silver Spring. Upon his arrival with the giant semi-esque tow truck, the driver looks at me and says, "So, where are we headed?" This to me seemed an odd question, and I immediately thought I'd say "Uh, gee, I don't know sir, aren't YOU the driver." Thought better of this since there was a good chance he was a killer and would stab us at some point on the two hour ride. Very good chance of that. We called AAA, who refused to give us directions because the drivers dispatcher should have given him that information. (Yes, AAA, we agree, but that doesn't really help the situation. Thanks for the great customer service.) Eventually, we got some directions out of them; that's their job, right, their M.O.? We followed these to the T, with Kate and Danni leading in the van. Naturally it brought us to a dead end street in some neighborhood. Genius.
Long story short (is that still possible at this point?) we dropped the car off randomly at a service station we saw along the way (the driver had called the dispatcher, Lenny, again, and got us back in the general direction of where we wanted) and made it into Silver Spring (which was apparently less than 15 minutes away at this point) no less than 6 hours (and .4 mi. left to go) after our intended arrival time. And then we unloaded the van.
Worst moving experience ever. No one was hurt though, just really tired. The moral? Broken down Dodge Neons named Iris will get you $650.
We're driving back to Silver Spring when all of a sudden my brother's car exploded.
Let me start at the beginning.
Thursday afternoon on our way back from El Canelo (my last cheese dip in wooster, so sad) when Danni made the realization that on the way back from Silver Spring on Sunday, she would be driving by herself for 6 hours. Most people would be like, man, this is a huge bummer, but I guess I can sing along as loud as I want to the radio now. Not Danni. Danni falls asleep in the car. Even if she's the one driving. Plans, henceforth changed and Kate, darling that she is, borrowed her parents van to take all of my stuff out in. Upon realization that said van would not, in fact, hold all my stuff, plus my brother's stuff, plus four of us, I quickly called my dad to see if he would be willing to drive my brother out in addition to us taking the van. Needless to say, he suddenly had to work on Saturdays and could not get away. So my brother agreed to take his car (despite its unreliability) with all his stuff. We tried to talk him into meeting us in Wheeling rather than driving the 3 extra hours out of his way to Wooster, but he's afraid of getting lost (understandably) and so followed us from Wooster on Friday morning.
So things were going along nicely (ok, we did leave Wooster an hour later than planned, but whatever) up until about 5 hours into the trip. We were maybe less than 2 hours from Silver Spring when my brother's car, which I was riding in began to smoke. We quickly pulled off at exit 68 (on I-68, mind you) to inspect. It appeared that several quarts (that's possible, right?) of oil had exploded all over the insie of my brother's car. Fuck. We stood around for a few minutes trying to decide what to do- Danni called her husband and I called my dad, whereupon we determined that it wasn't oil on the inside of the car, but dirty antifreeze. Apparently this is better. Kate and my brother rode up the street a bit and went into a gas station to get the lowdown on garages. Fortunately, Danni, making up for her need to ride in the car with at least one other person, revealed that she had AAA. We called a tow and waited 2 hours (it was dark at that point) for him to arrive.
AAA let's you have 100 miles of free towing. It was very tempting to try for Silver Spring, but we settled for Gaithersburg instead (which is a town I will never return to.) We reorganized stuff into my brother's car so that the two of us would fit in the van on the short ride from G'burg to Silver Spring. Upon his arrival with the giant semi-esque tow truck, the driver looks at me and says, "So, where are we headed?" This to me seemed an odd question, and I immediately thought I'd say "Uh, gee, I don't know sir, aren't YOU the driver." Thought better of this since there was a good chance he was a killer and would stab us at some point on the two hour ride. Very good chance of that. We called AAA, who refused to give us directions because the drivers dispatcher should have given him that information. (Yes, AAA, we agree, but that doesn't really help the situation. Thanks for the great customer service.) Eventually, we got some directions out of them; that's their job, right, their M.O.? We followed these to the T, with Kate and Danni leading in the van. Naturally it brought us to a dead end street in some neighborhood. Genius.
Long story short (is that still possible at this point?) we dropped the car off randomly at a service station we saw along the way (the driver had called the dispatcher, Lenny, again, and got us back in the general direction of where we wanted) and made it into Silver Spring (which was apparently less than 15 minutes away at this point) no less than 6 hours (and .4 mi. left to go) after our intended arrival time. And then we unloaded the van.
Worst moving experience ever. No one was hurt though, just really tired. The moral? Broken down Dodge Neons named Iris will get you $650.
posted by Megan at
9:16 AM
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