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Whistling Dixon

Earlier this week, I was a little annoyed. Because of my prostate infection, I was forced to miss what was surely a great show, with Elizabeth Elmore opening solo for Juliana Hatfield. Because of my dad’s birthday, I missed another Reputation show in early January. Now they’re back in the area, but the closest they were playing was Iowa City on the 3rd.

I already had plans to come out and visit Lucy on the 8th to see Kathryn Musilek, the bestest folk-rocker in the Midwest, and I wanted to see The Rep, as well, so I asked Lucy how likely it was that I could stay at her boyfriend’s apartment for five days straight. Unfortunately, since she would be working for much of that time, the chances were slim; I haven’t met this new boyfriend, but I almost certainly won’t get along with him. She told me that he was okay with me staying there, but she and I agreed it probably wasn’t a great idea.

Then, fate stepped in. Kathryn announced a new date popped up: she was playing on the 3rd now; she was opening at one venue, The Rep were headlining another. Both shows started at the same time, and one venue is around the corner from another. The whole thing would work so well. Plus, Lucy had Friday off, so we could hang out before I drove back home. I was pretty pumped about the turn of events, until I realized that my car’s a piece of shit.

Ever since I returned from Seattle, it’s been troubling. I got an oil change and had the sway bar repaired as soon as I got home, but still, its performance has been a bit off. My dad says I’m not used to driving a car with a sway bar that isn’t worn out, which is fair, but I’ve had the car for going on five years, and it’s never driven this poorly.

However, being that I’m both unemployed and generally cheap, I haven’t bothered to get it fixed, or even looked at. I’ve just been driving it, and it’s been reliable enough getting me to and from Cumberland and around the area, but I was pretty worried about taking it on a long, interstate trip, particularly since there’s almost nothing but empty space between Chicago and Iowa City.

I spent most of Thursday afternoon hemming and hawing and annoying most of my friends about whether or not I should go. My decision was made for me when Elizabeth offered to comp my ticket if I made the trip. I got in my car and went to get gas before heading out to Iowa.

At the gas station, before I left, I thought, “I should check my oil. I’m gonna be driving nearly 250 miles, and I haven’t checked it in months. This could be bad.”

“Actually,” I continued to think as I looked at the sticker on the upper corner of my windshield, “I’m two months overdue for an oil change. I should go get one real quick and then go.”

I looked at the clock — I was already running a bit late, as I was intending to drive slower than usual to ensure I would make it — and thought, “Fuck it,” before hitting the road.

For 4PM on a Thursday, traffic getting out of the city was surprisingly light. I, however, was increasingly suspicious of any noises I heard, despite the fact that most of them were coming from the rough roads or other cars. When I got through Aurora, where traffic really dies as bland office complexes of the suburbs fade into the empty farm fields of central Illinois, it was much easier to assess my car’s situation. I was, as much as possible, attempting to roar up between 75 and 80 (so much for going slower…), but as I reached speeds higher than 55, my car just really didn’t want to continue accelerating. I kept pushing it, because honestly, even with my CDs to keep me company, driving through the rural Illinois is boring.

I will say, though, that as the sun went down, and the gray clouds turned pinkish-orange, the snow-covered hills and dead trees looked more beautiful than what I normally see in the midst of the disgusting Chicagoland area. I thought as I passed through DeKalb (arguably the last “big” city before the Quad Cities on the opposite end of the state) that I should have stopped, maybe given my car a rest, checked the oil, and gotten something to eat. I went back and forth in my head and decided that the car didn’t seem that bad.

As twilight faded into dusk, and civilization disappeared almost entirely, I started to notice that the hood of my car was shaking violently. I wasn’t sure if that was normal for aging cars, but I had never noticed it on mine before, and I thought it was a bad, bad thing. The engine temperature monitor, I noticed, had slowly crept from the “C” to the first hashmark — a quarter of the way to “H.” Kind of a big leap, I thought, for only driving 90 minutes. I don’t know shit about cars, though, and I never really paid attention to this on previous trips to Iowa.

My panic increased, and at the next mid-sized town with gas, food, and lodging would be my pit stop.

I ended up pulling off at Dixon, a town known primarily for being the birthplace of Ronald Reagan. I pulled off at a rather large BP/food court/service station, which fortunately was right off the Interstate, popped the hood, and examined the engine, whirling and sputtering and making a horrifying, constant clicking noise.

After gently weeping for several minutes, I noticed it was after 5:30. I whipped out my cell phone and called my dad, who should have been home by then. He actually knows shit about cars, so he could’ve at least coached me through well enough to get me back home.

He hadn’t gotten home yet, though, so I had to tell my mother what was going on. She freaked the hell out, as is her way; we both hoped my dad would get home soon. Fortunately, he did after a couple of minutes. He asked me for symptoms, asked to hear the random clicking noise, and coached me through various diagnosis steps, such as checking the power steering fluid.

Eventually, he determined it was most likely a lack of oil. That’s right, when I went to check the oil, the goddamn thing was coated right up to the line that says “ADD 1 QT.” This was after running through a bunch of different potential problems, and my dad was really frustrated because he figured, despite knowing nothing about cars, I would be smart enough to not go on a long-distance, high-speed trip without at least checking the oil level. He doesn’t know me well at all.

His advice: buy a can of oil and head home. He said, if it was the oil (he wasn’t positive, but it seemed like a sure thing at that point), I would have the pleasure of feeling like an idiot in the privacy of my own home, but if it wasn’t the oil and I kept on going to Iowa, things would get even worse. Quad Cities excepting, the further you get away from Chicago, the more difficult it is to find help.

So I dumped in a quart of oil and headed back home. The ride was still shaky, but the closer I got to home, the smoother the ride became. Eventually, it was back pretty much to normal, the way it had been driving back at the beginning of the semester — not great (my dad still swears it’s just that I’m not used to the sway bar), but no violent shaking. I definitely could have made it to Iowa.

Yesterday, just to be safe, my dad and I both took my car out on the expressway for a bit, so he could listen and feel for the problems I described. Unfortunately, they were all gone. Giving me a bunch of very Hank Hill “that boy ain’t right”-esque looks, he simply told me to go to the shop and tell them to change the oil but alert them to the clicking noise in the engine (which was still there, despite the lack of performance problems). He figured, considering the smoothness of the drive, that it was just a normal age thing, but better safe than sorry.

So that’s it. Comped tickets, seeing two of my three favorite musicians play on the same night, and spending quality time with my best friend — all gone, because I am too fucking lazy to deal with basic automotive maintenance tasks.

I’ve said it once, but it bears repeating: I suck at existence.

(What’s doubly painful: Lucy finally realized that Tuesday, the 8th, is Mardi Gras, so she refuses to let me come down and ruin her good time with my “evils of alcohol” rap, so I’d have nowhere to stay if I went down for the second Kathryn Musilek show. Sigh.)

Posted by Stan on February 6, 2005 7:23 PM  | Permalink | Stories of Pain and Humiliation | Digg It