Saturday, November 22, 2008

For those considering having a baby, or buying a Ford.

Aran, and guest blogger submits the following:

It was Friday night and Gretchen and I thought it would be nice to go down to Central Market for a cheap dinner. Everything was going well, we had a nice little dinner and got in some shopping. Elsa was starting to fuss so we packed things up and made our way to the checkout. And that's when our luck ran out. It started raining pretty hard and being rookie parents, I suggested that Gretchen and Elsa wait inside and I would run out to car and drive it back so they wouldn't get wet. Right at that moment, the rain really started to pour down, it was cold and dark and I wasn't wearing any rain gear. As I pulled the car around Gretchen ran up with Elsa in her arms and jumped into the back seat to strap Elsa into her car seat. The rain continued to flow down as I loaded the stroller and all the other baby stuff into the car. After getting everything loaded up, I then jumped back into the driver seat. I was cold and dripping wet, the windows were all fogged up and all you could hear was the rain pelting the car and Elsa sreaming in protest, because she hates her car seat. In a calm voice I tried to reassure her that we would be home soon. I went to turn the key and nothing happened, the lights and radio came on but not the engine. For the next twenty minutes I tried everything to get the car started, to make things worse Elsa was really belting out her frustration. I could stand outside of the car in the cold rain where it was quiet or I could sit inside and be dry and listen to Elsa scream.

To make things worse Gretchen and I both forgot our cell phones. At that moment, we would of gave anything to have our cell phones, just because we could of called a friend to help get us home. Niether one of us could remember a single persons phone number because that info is programed into our cell phones. To get us through this crisis we had to join AAA road side assistance to have the car towed, call a taxi that has an infant car seat attachment, and find a shop in the area that could work on the car. All of this on a Friday night around 9 PM. We also needed the tow truck driver and taxi to arrive at the same time, because its still raining. After waiting for 45 minutes the tow truck driver arrived and then we waited with the tow truck driver for anther 20 minutes until we finally had to accept that yellow cab wasn't coming and Elsa wasn't happy. I guess in desperate times you do things you normally wouldn't do. So we bribed the tow truck driver to take us home after he dropped off our car with the mechanic. I guess its agianst the law and tow truck policy to put two adults and an infant without a car seat in the front cab of the truck.

In the end we made it home safely, that cheap diinner wasn't so cheap and I will never buy a Ford again. Because what pisses me off the most is that I've done all the scheduled maintance on that Explorer and it has less than 60K miles....the car shouldn't off just died like that. And these guys want a bail out, maybe they should make cars that work.

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