Bible Verse of the Day

Thursday, April 3, 2008

"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

My choir director, Jeremiah, asked me to play clarinet with his Junior Varsity girls' choir at concert and sight reading contest on Monday. I actually didn't find out about it until Sunday evening after I got home from the Kairos Outside retreat. No problem, though because he said it was easy and it was only about 16 measures.

I left from work with just barely enough time to get there. I had every intention of going back to work to make up for the time. I was taking a late lunch. It turns out that I didn't have enough time to eat. I sped (yes, I said sped) over to the school, which was about 20 miles away from work. I found the other clarinet player, a 7th grader from our church who plays with us sometimes at church and we waited for Jeremiah and his choir to show up. Meanwhile we warmed up and read through the music. Simple enough.

They finally showed up and when it was our turn we went into the warm-up room where we heard the choir for the first time and they heard us for the first time. Then it was off to the stage to perform. We played the bit of the one piece and after it was over, we put our horns away while the choir went off to the sight reading room. For those who don't know, sight reading is a contest where the group is given a piece of music they've never seen before, get a few instructions from the conductor and then perform it without rehearsal. It can be quite nerve wracking for everyone involved, including spectators!

I went out to the car to head back to work and this is what I found.


Yes, that is radiator fluid running from under the car. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon when I found this and about 9:00 when I took the photo. My camera just happened to be in DS#1's truck when he and DH came with radiator fluid to see if just filling it would work. It didn't. Inspection of the car showed that all the fluid had spewed out from under the radiator fill cap. I guess I drove it too fast. It's not the first time I've munged the thermostat in a car from driving too fast. It probably didn't help that the radiator fluid in that car was more than five years and 80,000 miles old, either.

I had called roadside assistance to bring me fluid, but they called a couple of providers and they all wanted to tow it someplace. No one would just bring me radiator fluid. Since I was 25 miles from home and there is an 11 mile tow limit, and I didn't know any facilities in the area to fix it at 6:00 PM, I called my DH to help. They came, about an hour and a half later. In the mean time, Jeremiah had left with his choir after offering me a ride on the bus back to his car, but I chose to stay with mine. Something interesting I noted, though, was that as I sat in my car with the hood up and the driver's door open, not a single person stopped to ask if I needed help. And I was in a busy parking lot! At a high school!

After two trips to the parts store for a socket set, thermostat, and WD-40, we still couldn't get the water jacket off without rounding the bolts. Jeremiah called to see if I was okay and he spoke to DH. When he told him of the towing dilemma, Jeremiah suggested we have it towed to his house since it was only about 5 miles from the school. What a life saver! I called roadside assistance back and told them we had a place to tow the vehicle. They got there about 45 minutes later and towed it away.

I got home at 10:30 that night, starving, cranky, and tired. I told my husband that no good deed goes unpunished and he jokingly replied that the next time anyone asked me to help them that I should just say NO! At that time, I was ready to take his advice, but of course I won't. That's just not me.

The car is now home with a new thermostat. DH and one of his co-workers went across town with tools borrowed from a mechanic-friend to get it fixed. Thanks Neil!

Oh yeah, after we called for the tow truck, two different people stopped within about three minutes to see if we needed help. Go figure. I think I would have had a few more offers of help earlier had I been on my side of town!

1 comment:

Suzanne said...

UGH! I HATE dealing with car problems! Glad it's all fixed now! :-)