I was sitting in class today when I got a text from Brett saying "Your boy chewed up something of yours. He's been scared and outside all afternoon." (your boy meaning Boston, the dog) Then I had to know what it was. My first thought was my power cord to my computer. This dog has a thing for cords... well only cords to my stuff like my cell phone charger or my Wii remote. It was definitely a plausible thought. Luckily it wasn't my power cord (I'm assuming it would have been a lot harder to replace). Instead it was my shoes that I wear for clinical. Normally I would just say, "Oh well I have other pairs of shoes and I didn't really like them anyway." Unfortunately I have to have all black or white shoes for clinical and those are the only all black shoes I have and I have clinical Thursday. I had planned on getting new shoes anyway because these shoes squeak when I walk in them (yes.. every step... annoying!), but I was trying to hold off until after gradation so it wouldn't matter about the whole color thing. However, events folding out as they did, today was the day.
On my way to get shoes I realized I needed to get gas and since I still had a Cheveron gift card from Christmas I stopped there. When I pulled up though, the guy was right there and I was frazzled and couldn't find the gift card so I just gave him my debit card... Not really a big deal. I get my gas, head towards the road, get ready to pull out into traffic, and then realize my car is smoking... Awesome! Put the car in reverse, pull next to the vacuum stand out of the way, and pop the hood. Upon opening the hood I realized my radiator cap is missing. I look through all that under the hood junk trying to find the cap; not there. Get on the ground and look under the car; not there either. Realizing that I'm less than 100ft away from the Cheveron, I decided that I'm just going to walk over there and see if they have a new cap. I then closed the hood, look up, and realize there's a Jiffy Lube even closer and they are more likely to have a cap. So I walk over there, the guy comes to check it out, realizes that yes I really am missing the radiator cap, and then goes to check and see if they have it. And yes they did. He finds the cap in the stock room and then we head back to the car. After putting the cap on and realizing there is fluid all over the place, I asked, "Do you have antifreeze?" He says, "Yes we do, but we'll totally do that for free." He runs over and grabs the fluid and starts filling it up and says, "Yeah so don't worry about this it's free." I replied, "The fluid right?" Then he said, "No the cap too, it's on us. Save the money and go wash your car off." Freaking sweet!! I thank the guy like a million times and then hop in my car and get on the road to Dick's to go get my new shoes. I was thinking to myself as I was driving that when I got done finding shoes, if I still had time I should go back and get my oil changed at the Jiffy Lube as a "thank you". But of course that didn't work out because..........
As I'm driving and getting closer to Dick's I look at my temperature gauge and realize it's getting really close to the red line... Not good. As I pull into the parking lot the gauge is on the red line so being me I just turned it off and went into Dick's since you can't really touch anything when the engine is that hot. I find the shoes I want pretty quick and then the guy tells me about this protection plan. He says "You can bring these back no questions asked within the next year and we'll give you a credit for the price you pay today and you can new shoes." Then I interrupt and say, "even if your dog chews them up?" and he replies, "Exactly! That's actually the example I usually use. But basically you can get yourself a new pair of shoes every 6 months if you want and all you need to do is buy the protection plan for another $12." I was sold! Got my shoes, some new socks (I needed some new ones anyway), and the protection plan and then it was time to head back to my car. I pop the hood again and check the fluids. Everything looked okay and then I went to start my car. Yeah... that wasn't exactly happening. Pop the hood again, check all the fluids this time including the oil. Everything looked okay again so I went back to try to start it again and was still having issues. But finally with a little persistence and gas I was able to get it.
Driving home I was freaking out a bit because of the whole temperature deal (unfortunately I had a lot of experience with this over the summer). I had almost made it home and then it started red lining again. So I pulled off a side street and of course it starts to resolve itself so I finish the drive home and just shut the thing off. I walked in pissed (understandably) and start ranting about how I want a new car but of course I can't get one right now. Skip through the next hour where I was still pretty mad... Then Brett and I decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings for what I like to call my "happy meal". As we're sitting there we start talking about all the madness going on with capstone placement requests and then just the stuff that had happened on the way home. We then decided that maybe it was the cap they gave me or maybe it was because he only filled the reserve chamber, so that it might be good to stop at a parts store on the way home (We're genius when we put our minds together ;o) ) We got the parts and some antifreeze, popped the hood yet again, and found that the caps were exactly the same; so not the problem. Then we filled the reserve chamber again (cause what was in there had been sucked back into the radiator) and then filled the radiator itself... Half a jug later we decided we should go on a test drive. Fifteen miles later, ten minutes sitting in the driveway, and no overheating! Unfortunately past experience has taught me that it'll take a longer drive to make sure, but for now I think we solved it.
Finally, at the end of the night, after a deep breath...well many deep breaths... and some conversation, everything appears that it is working out. Whew! Tomorrow... if all goes well and my car doesn't overheat and I have time I hope to go get my oil changed back at the Jiffy Lube! We'll see if the plan works out :o)
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