I kept a secret for the last year, but now it's time to let that secret escape.

In September of 2016, our beloved Ford Focus fell victim to a guy trying to turn into traffic with the setting sun in his eyes. We replaced it with what became equally beloved, a 2014 Ford Escape, which I call burgundy but which is technically ruby red.


I cannot conceive of why there have to be fifty shades of red. When I became a volunteer firefighter, we had several fire trucks that were red. We had one that was burgundy. That's it. The names of colors never made us hungry.

Anyway, this car had a backup camera and a computer screen, neither of which I saw any use for, both of which I now wouldn't do without. We drove that car all over everywhere. Well, four states, anyway, and about two dozen state parks, not to mention Chicago. Don't get me started on Chicago.

It always amused me, how many ruby red SUVs we noticed on the road after that. Probably just the bias of us having one, but it seemed like we saw them everywhere.

 
"You get a ruby SUV, you get a ruby SUV--you all get a ruby SUV!"

When it developed a very small radiator leak I wasn't too concerned, until nobody could find the leak. I mean nobody, including mechanics and the dealer. Then one of the spark plugs started acting up. Then everything started acting up.

We drove it a LOT, mind you.

But estimates for fixing the problem, assuming we could figure out what the problem was, brought us into the "nickle and diming us" phase of car ownership. We needed a new car. Emily started researching, and I looked around.

 
Do you see Emily? I didn't--I almost got into the wrong car.

We found a car that was a heck of a deal, if we were willing to drive some distance to look at it. We did. We looked. We fell in love.

Much to our surprise, we drove back home in a different car than the one we'd left in. Having learned my lessons, I embraced the changes that came with a vehicle five years newer. It has so much extra safety equipment that the insurance cost actually went down.

It also has heated seats, and a heated steering wheel, two things I used to make fun of. No more. The screen showed us where we were and where we were going, and the computer could connect our phones (audio book, yay!), make us hot tea, warn us if we were approaching a politician with his hand out, and even play the radio.

And it had remote start.

Whoever invented the remote start needs to win the Nobel Prize For Awesome.

As we headed home, I suggested to Emily that we play a little game. "Let's not tell anyone we bought a car, and see how long before anyone notices."



You see, we replaced the ruby red 2014 Ford Escape with a ruby red 2019 Ford Escape.

The photo above shows them together--the new one's on the right. We took the front license plate off, but there's still a considerable difference in the front. In the back, not so much.

A few of my family members noticed right away--nobody else did unless I pointed it out to them. After all, someone else's car is not something the average person pays close attention to. Still, it was a lot of fun having the secret.

It was also a lot of fun seeing my speed in kilometers per hour: The car comes from Canada.



 

 

Remember, you don't have to drive somewhere to buy our books ... although if you want to, why not?

 

 Seven years ago, I swore I would never, EVER drive in Chicago again.

Last Saturday, we drove to Chicago. Again.

It was for the same reason as last time, to see The Cure in concert. The Cure's music is ... well ... it's been called post-punk, gothic rock, new wave, and alternative. Robert Smith has fronted the band since the late 70s, so I assume it wasn't all that at the same time. Oddly, while I don't care for those types of music, I actually like The Cure. Not the way Emily does. Not "we have to go to Chicago to see them play". No, sir. But I love my wife, and proved yet again that I'm willing to put my life on the line for her.

 

The venue was different from last time, giving me the hope it wouldn't be as far into the city.

It wasn't as close. It was closer. We actually drove between the skyscrapers at one point. We experienced our version of "The Suicide Squad".

The place is called The United Center. As I understand it, some sports-ball team plays in it when concert season is over. The Bills, or the Bulls, or the Boobs, something like that.


We got the nosebleed seats, but I didn't realize how literal that was. Our seats were in the very last row of a stadium that seats 23,500 people (sold out), and to get there we had to buy rock climbing equipment and hire a sherpa. It never occured to me that anyone would put in sections so steep that your toes are at the level of the next fan's head, which I'm sure has caused a fight or two. The place had to have been built in the 50s--no way would authorities allow such a fall risk these days. If I'd slipped on the top step, I'd have kept tumbling until I bowled over the drummer.

(I checked: It opened in 1994. They probably had some celebratory hang gliders launch from our position that day.)


And the band? Well, the band was great, but I wish I'd brought my telescope. They looked like little Polly Pockets, if you remember those. Kind of micro-dolls. There were two big TV monitors beside the stage, but we could barely see those either, especially once the questionable smoke started to rise from the audience.


As you can see from the above photo, we actually had a seat right in the center. Cool, right? The crowd is shining their cell phones to bring the band back for an encore. I don't know what encores are in other places, but this was more like the halftime show.

The Cure started a little late, and after that "encore" we walked out to the parking lot, got in the car, and ... sat there. Driving to the venue had been a lot like the asteroid field in "Star Wars V: Crazy Drivers Strike Back". So we decided to let things clear a little, and the more we thought about it, the more we let things clear.

We were, in fact, the last car through the exit gate. On purpose.

 Surely, by well after midnight, both the concert crowd and regular traffic would have regained some measure of sanity, right? RIGHT?

Chicago driver are insane.

Not "bad". In fact, many of them are quite good in a NASCAR kind of a way. Sure, they may arrive with their cars covered in dents and scratches and pedestrians, at a speed that nets them a good 9 mpg gas mileage, but they'll get there fast.

Base, drums, amplifiers ... much calmer.

I had to drive 15 mph over the speed limit just to keep from being rear-ended. Even then, every few minutes something would streak around us like an F-15 doing a flyover. Then it would veer across three lanes, pass someone else, and dive back across the same three lanes without ever touching the brakes.

In heavy traffic. Well, it probably didn't seem heavy to them.

I'd like to speak specifically to everyone in the Chicago area who drives a Dodge Challenger. We saw the rear-end of several, because despite my instincts, I had to keep my eyes open. You people, you're crazy. Nuts. Looney-tunes. The fact that any of you survive is proof of guardian angels.

 

Typical Chicago Driver Enjoying the Mayhem.

 

 

As for us, there were only a few times when I had to stand on the brakes and swerve into another lane. Emily may have screamed, I don't know. I did. The rest of the time my death grip stayed on the steering wheel, my head on a swivel, and my stomach in my mouth.

We got home around 4 a.m., and after we stopped shaking slept most of the day. Then we woke up with a concert hangover. That's a real thing.

Then, the next day, Monday, my muscles remembered they'd spent six hours so tense you could bounce a quarter off them. Not to mention the three hours in the stadium seats, which were actually comfortable for the first hour. (Yeah, my ears popped on the way up, but nobody dropped a car on me.) Ironically, after all that sitting over the weekend, on Monday I couldn't get off the couch.

I'm glad Emily got to see her favorite band, and I'll take her again--if they ever come to Albion.

 

 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Remember whenever you don't buy a book, another driver is born in Chicago. Oh, the humanity!

 


 

Author's note (me. I'm the author): I wrote this back in 2021, and apparently never posted it anywhere except on Humor Outcasts. Murphy's Laws probably cover that.
-----------------------------------------------


 Murphy’s Law is very clear on certain points. Most of us are familiar with Murphy’s Law #1, which states that if anything can possibly go wrong, it will. There’s also Murphy’s Corollary #14, which says that if Mark Hunter attempts any manner of mechanically based activities, Murphy’s Law #1 is immediately in effect.

Then there’s Murphy’s Law #27, which was added to the list in 1923 by Murphy’s grandson, G.C. Murphy. I discovered Murphy’s Law #27 several years ago, when I paid off my car. It's the one that states, “Immediately after making the very last payment on something, it will break.”

I looked forward to paying off my car with mixed feelings. My car had been very good to me, and I didn’t want to see the poor thing fall apart just because I didn’t owe anything on it. Still, I figured as long as the cost of repairs didn’t exceed the payments, I’d break even.

Maybe “break” was a bad way to put it.

At the time I had a foreign car, a Nissan. Well, maybe foreign. Since many foreign cars are assembled in the U.S., and many American cars are assembled from parts made in other countries, the only way you can be sure of having an American vehicle these days is to build it yourself.

That I wasn’t prepared to do – see Murphy’s Corollary #14.


The first winter after I paid it off, the gas line froze. But in its defense, I don’t handle winter well, either.

 

I’ve owned one other foreign car, but it was made in France. The French car started almost every single time I turned the key – but whether it would then go was a crapshoot. It was a safe car, because cars that won’t leave the driveway rarely get into accidents.

I’ve also owned Fords, Chevys, Pontiacs, and a funky looking white Dodge Omni that my ex-wife sacrificed to the gods of utility poles. I have only one real requirement: They should start when I turn the key, and go where I steer. That’s about it.

My Nissan did that. Then, two months before it would be paid off, I was surprised by a letter from my friendly bank, informing me my loan had matured, and they would like all the rest of their money. Now.

I had no idea loans matured. I thought they came out of the bank fully grown.

I sent the money, then the bank sent me another letter to inform me I overpaid, and here’s my refund. Wasn’t that nice of them, to spend $2.67 on paper, envelope and stamp so I could get my $1.43? They were probably imagining the look on my face when I opened the envelope.

Now, from the moment I sent in that last check I had the feeling a huge, steel toed shoe was hovering over my head, ready to drop. To my surprise, the doors didn’t fall off when I sent the check. The engine didn’t explode when I received the refund. By the time the title arrived, I was so nervous I scheduled an oil change, just so I could say I’d taken care of the routine maintenance and was in no way at fault for whatever was about to happen.


The car I bought after the Nissan. This was taken after it was paid off.

 

As I sat in the waiting room, contemplating the pluses and minuses of buying a moped, the maintenance guy popped his head in and said cheerfully, “Your car is done!”

 My voice rose five octaves. “Oh my gosh! It’s done? Finished? Over? What happened? I need to be with it, to say goodbye–“

“No, no, you don’t understand – I mean, we’re done changing the oil.”

“Oh … thank goodness, I thought –“

“And you’re going to need new brakes soon.”

I refer you back to Murphy’s Law #27.

“How soon?” I asked. “A few months? A year or so?”

“Within two weeks, unless you live for thrills and close calls. You could buy an anchor, but depending on what it hooks onto, that could cause more harm than good.”

The new brakes – and I doubt I need to tell you this – cost the same as a car payment. But that’s hardly surprising:

Murphy’s Law is very clear.

(Postscript: My Nissan was later demolished by a hit and run driver. My next car was paid off, then totaled by a hit and stay driver. In my current vehicle, I twitch whenever I see any other cars come close. I’m sure that’s covered by another of Murphy’s Laws.)

My wife in our current car. Which we just paid off, so … it’s just a matter of time.


http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
I totally loved my last car, so it’s ironic that it got totaled, which I didn’t love.
Normally I’m not one of those who falls madly in love with automobiles. They’re just something to get me from one place to another until they don’t anymore, which with my track record happens sooner, rather than later. My first car exploded; a wheel fell off my second; my third died at a rest stop outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee; my fourth froze solid on a snow swept rural road half a mile from the nearest phone.
And so on.
So when a car comes along that does me good, I appreciate it. So it was with my Ford Focus, which lasted over ten years despite … well, me. Yes, it had its problems, but it was as reliable as the American election cycle, and way more fun. It was easy to drive, had great brakes, accelerated me out of trouble more than once, and the back seat was kind of comfortable to sleep in as long you curled up. (That’s another story.)
Then, like a vampire, it was killed by sunlight.
Well, it was killed by another driver who was blinded by sunlight. To be honest, we grieved: because it was a great car, and because it was paid off. But life goes on, so my wife, who was laid up with a broken foot (see above about the blinded driver killing the car), started researching a replacement.
We wanted a domestic model, which is silly because these days half of American cars are built in other countries, and half of foreign cars are built in America. Still, I never forgot the time the transmission broke in my Renault Alliance (see car #3), and they had to order a new part—from France. I’ve bought American ever since (except for car# 8), which didn’t save me from the Chevy Chevette (see car #4).
We also wanted something that could transport both of us, plus our dog and the grand-twins. A 95 pound dog and two kids in one back seat adds up to someone being crushed.
We wanted something that would get us around a little better in an Indiana winter (see car # … well, all of them), but that would still get decent gas mileage. (Car #5 got awesome gas mileage, because engines don’t burn gas when they never start.) The answer: a mid-size SUV.
We picked out a Ford Escape before discovering that it was built on the same chassis as the … wait for it … Ford Focus. Maybe that’s part of the reason why we fell in love with the car. (Can I call an SUV a car? Too late.) It’s burgundy, although it has one of those non-color names, like pink grapefruit, or tangerine, or something else with vitamin C.

It's not made of rubies. That's my wife behind the wheel, and she's not made of money.
Oh, ruby red, that’s it. Where did I get food from? I’ve hated that trend ever since I accidentally ate a macaroni and cheese crayon.
There was one problem. (Well, two, as we had to start making car payments again.) Our old car was over ten years old, which in terms of today’s electronics meant it was about eighty.
Things had, to put it mildly, changed. And not because I’d never owned a sport utility vehicle. I don’t even like sports.
To this day I’m always a little surprised not to find preset buttons on my car radio. You know what I found when we got into a 2014 SUV? A TV screen. That’s sixties-era science fiction movie stuff.
“Look at this!” I said.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” the car replied.
Because you can talk to the car. And it can talk back. You can use it as a phone, or an internet hot spot. Also, you can use the car to get music and news from a satellite orbiting the Earth. In space.
Think about that.
When I was a kid, you could barely hear the radio station during a thunderstorm. We could pull in three AM stations: country, NPR, and WOWO radio 1190, which was the top 40 rock station. Now some guy was downloading all Beatles songs into a computer in London and beaming them to a satellite thirty thousand miles in space, which was then sending them straight to my friggin’ car.
I don’t care if you’re a millennial or not: If you stop to really think about this, how can you not be amazed? (In case you’re wondering, no, we didn’t continue the satellite service after the free trial was over. I wasn’t that amazed.)
You touched the screen to change radio stations. Then you touched it again to turn on the air conditioning. You can set a different temperature for each side of the car. You know what the air conditioning was on my first four cars? Rolling the windows down (with a hand crank) and driving real fast.
If it’s a nice day, we can now push a button and open the roof. Dude.
So we were test driving the Escape, and I put it in reverse, and the “environmental” information on the screen disappeared. Instead, I saw what was behind me. ON A TV SCREEN.
A little voice said, “What are you doing, Mark?”
“Um … I’m backing up.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. There’s a car three blocks away that will go by when you’re four feet onto the roadway. Please wait until it passes.”
“But … how do you know my name?”
“I knew it as soon as you sat down. Butt cheek recognition software.”
Okay, I might have been making up that last bit. But the seats are all electric, so who knows what they’re feeling?
Next thing you know, cars will be driving themselves.

Part 1 was here:  http://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-turkey-run-to-turkey-run-part-1-what.html


Part 2 is ... painful.




You owned a car for seven years. You named it “Brad”. You loved Brad. You two had been through everything together: three jobs, twenty trips to Missouri, a wedding, and a dog. Nothing could replace Brad.

Then you totaled him.

Okay, so I’m paraphrasing the lady from the Liberty Mutual commercial. But I really did love my car, even though I never developed the habit of naming inanimate objects. It was a 2006 Ford Focus. It was reliable, constant as the evening star.

I kind of like Logansport, too. It’s a nice little city, about 90 miles from Albion, close to a two-hour drive. We decided to stop there for pizza, on our way home from our shortened camping trip. We were driving down East Market Street in the late afternoon, with the sun to our back, which means the sun was right in the face of the young man who was trying to turn left into

BAM!

They say a car’s airbag inflates instantly, but they also say time slows at moments like that. I watched it inflate. Ironically, although I had about half an instant to stand on the brake, I didn’t actually see the impact—just the airbag coming toward me. The other driver, I assume, hit the gas to clear oncoming traffic, but the sun blinded him and he accelerated straight into us.

By the way, as much as I love my car, it was paid off. His was ten years newer, and he’d only made two payments. At least he wasn’t hurt.

My first act was to check Emily. Emily’s first act was to check Bae. Her reasoning is that the dog was not belted in, while I had both belt and airbag, and I’m just glad anyone was reasoning at all at that moment. She also reasoned that the car was on fire, which she rather urgently pointed out to me.

On a related note, an airbag is deployed by a small explosive charge, which is how it comes out so fast. The speed is helped by a powdery substance that helps the material come out smoothly. Add those two together with the smashed radiator and yeah, it looked like the car was on fire. I’m glad it wasn’t, because after checking my car’s occupants I decided to check the other driver, and my door wouldn’t open.

You get a sinking feeling at moments like that. You get another sinking feeling when you realize you’re two hours from home, and your car’s going nowhere. And a ten-year-old car, smashed all the way to the passenger compartment? It’s going nowhere, ever again.




Well, except by tow truck. With a major street blocked, I had little time to grab a few things. Our suitcase, of course. It was all the way in the back of the trunk, behind all the camping gear. I had to unload the trunk, then load it again.

Then it was gone.

Blood was dripping from my hand; Emily was limping; the dog was confused. We were two hours from home. The insurance company was prepared to get us a rental car, when the rental company opened in the morning. Meanwhile, they said we could be reimbursed the cost of a taxi to the nearest hotel.

I don’t know how many taxis allow a 90-pound dog in. I have a fairly good idea how many hotels do. My oldest daughter and son-in-law dropped what they were doing, loaded the grand-twins into their van, and drove two hours to pick us up. The next day, in a rental (which made me incredibly nervous), we came back and got about two carloads of stuff out of Brad. I mean, the Focus.

It wasn’t just the camping gear—it was everything. My wonderful Focus, with the brand new tires and full tank of gas, will not be seen again outside a junk yard.

The rest is anticlimactic. The attention-grabbing blood came from a little gash on the inside of my index finger. How is a mystery, but considering the abrasions and bruise on my arm, it’s related to the airbag.

Emily’s foot, like my arm, hurt a little. Then a lot. The doctor recommended an x-ray as a precaution, which meant a trip to the ER on a Friday evening, during a full moon. Yes, we were there exactly as long as you’re thinking, but it’s probably best to know when someone has a broken foot. She got crutches, then a “boot”. The boot looks like she’s being converted into a cyborg. This is how Darth Vader started, people.

The only thing left is to give thanks; when the chips are down Hoosiers are wonderful. People rushed over with alcohol wipes and towels for my finger, which looked way worse than it was. The other driver admitted his mistake, and at no time were words or fists thrown. More than one person stopped to see if they could help, and everyone (of course) loved the dog.

I have to mention the employees of Bruno’s Carry Out Pizza. I mean, we were on our way to get pizza, right? On one side of the street was a car for sale, which I found ironic, and on the other side was Bruno’s. I don’t know what they thought when they saw us coming, dragging a suitcase and hauling bags, and looking very nervously for traffic as we crossed the street.

But it was great pizza.

There’s a bench in front of Bruno’s. We may have been their first ever eat-in customers, although we were technically outside. They got water for the dog, and when I found out my daughter’s family hadn’t eaten and went in for another order, they gave it to us for free.

I wish it hadn’t happened—I love my wife not limping, and I loved my car, and not making car payments. But all you ever hear about is bad people doing bad things. Good people outnumber bad people—sometimes it takes bad stuff to be reminded of that.

Oh, I almost forgot: This whole series of unfortunate events started when the temple of my glasses broke off. The makers of the frame had been bought out, but the optometrist office managed to find a spare part—which didn’t exactly match, but worked just fine. Another example of someone going the extra mile to help out.

If you look very closely, you can see a difference. So ... don't look closely.

 

 

I’m considering not taking vacations anymore. Too stressful.

 

I have to go back to work for at least a week before my stress levels fall enough for the stress of work to start getting to me again. Then I start needing a vacation, because the last vacation was too stressful. If Joseph Heller hadn’t already written it, I’d hit the best seller list with my own Catch-22.

 

Let’s start at the beginning, when we decided to vacation at a place called Turkey Run State Park. It was the vacation that ended up being a turkey.

 

A few days earlier, as I cleaned my glasses, a temple fell off. The temples are the parts that hang over your ears. Remove one, then try to wear your glasses. Yeah.

 

Whenever it’s time for new glasses I try to get the same frames, because the only thing worse than wearing glasses is wearing new glasses. And every time, that particular frame is no longer available. Every time. It’s like some kind of sick joke within the frame making business.

 

But this time, the optometrist office didn’t tell me the frames weren’t available. They told me the frame manufacturer wasn’t available. They’d been bought out. The optometrist was going to try and find some spare parts, which was fine except I was about to drive three and a half hours away.

 

Here comes the repeating theme of this story, which is that things kept working out even as my stress levels rose. During my last eye exam, my eyesight had hardly changed at all. I slipped the old glasses into the new case, and there they waited for a catastrophe just like this one.

 

It reminds me of the line from Apollo 13, which went something like, “I think we’ve had our glitch for the mission.” They didn’t stop to consider there might be more than one glitch.

 

We managed to fit all our camping gear, and the dog, into my beloved 2006 Ford Focus. I probably wouldn’t have used the term “beloved” before, but I really did love that car.

 

Guess I’m telegraphing the ending.

 

Wait--I have to sleep outside with you? What did I do?

 

 

Let’s go back to the dog, Bae (It’s short for Baewulf, and yes, I know it’s misspelled—don’t tell him). Bae had started his fall shed. He must have been exhausted, growing so much fur. We would open a window, and a tornado of hair would blast past us. It looked like a cloud of smoke, pouring from the car. No wonder he sleeps so much.

 

Meanwhile, Emily got a sore throat the same night we put a deposit down on a campsite. By the next morning she had a cold so bad I’m still not sure it wasn’t the flu. I bought a case of Kleenex and a barrel of Nyquil, and she laid on the couch and didn’t complain, because she’s not me. We were still going on vacation, she declared, because our deposit was non-refundable.

 

We’ll just eat the cost, I told her. Your health is more important.

 

She swept aside a two-foot drift of dog fur and gave me a glare that actually made me retreat into the next room. “I’ll pack the car,” I told her. She really hates wasting money.

 

The strange thing about this whole story is that we had a wonderful time, whenever we weren’t miserable. We’ve compromised on our camping style: She gave up the two-man pup tent and hard ground, and I gave up the giant camper with a generator and satellite TV. The important thing is the inflatable air mattress. We had a nice site, a roaring fire, and S’mores. We had some great hiking trails that traversed rivers, suspension bridges, and canyons. Yes, there are canyons in Indiana.

 

We had leash laws.

 

This was one of the less scenic areas!

 

 

See, in a state park there are rules, and one is that you keep your pets on a leash. The lady with the dog on the trail either wasn’t holding the leash tightly enough, or was letting her dog roam, and drag the leash behind it. It saw our dog, Bae. It wanted Bae.

 

It wanted Bae for dinner.

 

I found myself quite literally in the middle of a dogfight. To our dog’s credit, he went on the defensive. However, Emily was there. When there might be a danger to Emily, “defensive” becomes a snarling, clawing, biting, 90-pound whirlwind of kick-ass. There’s no reason I can think of why my attempts to drag him away didn’t result in major blood loss.

 

Which brings us back to our “all’s well that ends well” theme. No injuries. The lady dragged her dog away and apologized profusely, and once Emily knew Bae was unharmed she restrained herself from going after the lady.

 

There was also no injury half an hour later when a much friendlier dog came running after Bae, wanting only to make friends but not realizing our dog had just been traumatized.

 

Leashes, people. It’s a thing.

 

We lasted about a day and a half. Emily was still sick, the dog was stressed, and that was it. We decided we’d come back the next week and spend a few more days there, because Turkey Run State Park was really a wonderful place.

 

All we needed was transportation.

 

Next: The “Trip” Back

 

S'Mores, people.

 

 

.

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