Dealing with car troubles as an adult

I’ll always remember the day my cherry red Mazda 3 came into my life. I was six months post moving to Danville CA and the adjustment process to making all new friends my junior year of high school was well underway. It became clear from very early on that material objects were important in Danville. I find it ironic that my first pair of Uggs ever purchased were in Danville, where the average winter time low was 65 degrees. I had refused to purchase a pair while living in Wisco, but I did a lot of things I never thought I would when I moved to Cali. And that isn’t necessarily a positive statement.

My parents understood this severe culture change and were unbelievably supportive of sometimes unreasonable efforts to try to fit in (“Moooom, I have to buy all new jeans or no one will like meeee!!!!!”). Maybe my dad felt sorry for moving me in the middle of high school – especially to a place such as Danville – but he also understood that it wasn’t uncommon for newly licensed 16 year olds to get brand new BMWs for their birthday at my high school.  After a month of test driving and used car ads, we decided to journey to San Jose one day to check out a car that looked mighty pretty online. One smile later and my dad knew it was the car for me. Drove it off the lot one hour later.

Like many new drivers (and inconsiderate, selfish 16 year olds) – I treated that car like shit. I don’t think it was more than a couple weeks before I backed it into a friend’s car and dented my entire right bumper. Not long after, some idiot keyed my car in the high school parking lot. Just for fun. And then there was the time my tires got slashed during a Friday night party.

Danville. Was. Awesome.

Whenever car troubles arrived, the scenario usually played out like this: 1) Call to dad. 2) throw a temper tantrum. 3) cry hysterically until he took care of it all. 4) forget about it completely and repeat the cycle next time.

Car troubles were easy when I was living at home. Or at least I perceived them to be so. Only because I was very good about dodging any form of responsibility. Things are a little different these days. Now when I have car troubles – I just call my brother’s best friend Will and cry hysterically to him. He fixes things and I buy him food. Will was kind enough to indulge my 8 AM Sunday phone call yesterday to listen to me cry about my car yet again.

Throughout yesterday’s car fiasco, I have come to realize that I really haven’t gotten any better at dealing with car troubles since I “supposedly” became an adult. I have just been really good at finding other parental figures in the local area to listen to me cry and complain.

So how many people does it take to fix Melissa’s car? Six.

First thank you goes to Jenn for recognizing the problem. Even though I was pissed that she recognized the problem at 8 AM on a Sunday, one day after Mifflin….

Second goes to Janelle and her boyfriend Eric, who basically parented me through the crisis. Eric was even gracious enough to learn how to use jumper cables for the first time to help me jump the car. Janelle provided the comical relief by just being herself. Did I mention all this took place during a semi-tornado? 6 inches of rain in 1 hour.

Third is Will. Who knew there would be no reason I would be calling him at 8 AM unless it was an emergency. Knowing  it would be some silly car problem, he still returned my phone call.

Fourth: the lady at AAA. For telling me she couldn’t help me because children aren’t covered under their parent’s plan – forcing me to wear some big girl panties and get the job done.

Fifth: Darryl, for entertaining all my complaints during our Sunday afternoon shopping adventure, when I preceded to point at every single car that drove by and say “Oh look…they have a working car…” I think this is where I include the hashtag #overdramatic.

Sixth: Morgan, for changing her entire day plans to be home this afternoon to re-jump my car so I can get it to a Meineke, where they can service my car for the price of my entire tax refund…

Growing up sucks.