Oh, Shit... The Brakes Don't Work...

“Oh, shit… the brakes don’t work…” that was the thought running through my mind while I was flying northbound, downhill on the I-5 back into the Central Valley yesterday. I looked at my dashboard and noticed that my car’s engine had turned off while I was driving! The dash lights told me that my car was in that limbo-land that allows you to hear the radio but not actually drive the car. As I picked up speed toward what was potentially my impending demise, I put on my hazards, started pumping the brakes, and began moving over to the right side of the freeway. My death hadn’t even crossed my mind. What I was more concerned about, was how I was going to afford to fix whatever the fuck was wrong with my car now! I can’t say I’m surprised that my day was turning out to be like that because the way it started was no peach either.

It all started Tuesday night when my friend, Tony, texted me and said his roommate’s room was up for grabs starting in August. I, of course, jumped at this opportunity because the room is over $100 cheaper than I was paying last year to rent a room from a crazy-ass cat lady. So I talked to his roommate, David, that night after I got off of work, and it was decided that Wednesday was the best day for me to come down and look at the room. That meant that I had to make an emergency trip down to Orange in less than 8 hours. Not pleased, but relieved to have a chance at a better place to live.

I had the beginnings of a sore throat Tuesday, which turned into a dry, scratchy throat that night, only to wake up Wednesday morning from less than 6 hours sleep and with a full blown sore throat. Super pissed! Still, I hit the road at about 8:30am with a 3 ½ to 4 hour drive to Orange ahead of me.

The drive was ok, if not boring, since I was by myself. I listened to Pandora on my new Android—I’ve recently become a fan of Dub-step (thanks Bruseph)—and I arrived at the apartment at about 12:30pm. I liked everything I saw and by 12:45pm I was down at the rental office filling out a credit check/application.

The credit check got me concerned because 1) It didn’t dawn on me that I’d have to pay $30 for the credit check and 2) If I needed a cosigner for this place, I’d be kinda screwed. I have better credit than either of my parents, and I really didn’t want to have to ask my grandma to take a risk like that (even though I know I’m good for it). Regardless of my fears, I turned in the application and was told the results would be ready by 2pm. With an hour to kill I decided to get some gas, food, and a 5 hour energy drink because I was exhausted and still had to drive back home to Fresno.

Thankfully, by 1:15 the woman from the rental office had called me and said that I had passed the credit check and could sign the lease all on my own, without a cosigner!

Now, let’s talk about the 5 hour energy drink for a minute, shall we? I had never tried one before, but I’d heard they work great. I don’t generally like the taste of energy drinks and I don’t drink sugary beverages, but the 5 hour is sugarless and the new flavor is grape- my favorite! I read the tiny bottle and it basically said don’t drink more than 2 a day because you’ll probably die, blah, blah, blah… So I downed it, and it didn’t taste too bad toward the end. I felt kind of like Lucy in the Vita-meat-a-veg-a-min episode.

By the time I’d reached the rental office 2 minutes later I was feeling a little weird. Kinda shaky, and yet on top of the world because I was signing my first lease ever, all by myself, with the good credit I’d worked so hard to build! It was a major “I’m a big girl” moment. My immediate thoughts were “I’m pretty sure this is what crack feels like.” I know some people who’ve done it and they say that you get super awake and you feel like you can do anything. The logical conclusion for me (and some other people I know) was that 5hour energy=crack! 

So I sat there in the office kinda drunk/happy while the lady went over the lease with me. I initialed all over that lease, wrote some checks like a boss, and walked out of there feeling relieved, happy, and wired, to say the least.

The drive home seemed longer than usual, probably because my throat was still sore and I just wanted to go home and go to sleep. I mark the end of the grapevine as the final stretch of my trips to and from Orange, and was relieved to be coming up on that checkmark. Usually, on the downward steep, I take cruise control off, and throw my car into neutral in an attempt to save gas. I don’t know if it actually works or not… This time, I think I forgot to turn the cruise control off first and just threw it into neutral. As soon as I did that, the engine cut out and I found myself gliding down the hill at 80+mph with no brakes and no power steering.

Surprisingly, I didn’t panic. Well, I didn’t panic because I thought I was going to die or crash. I coasted down the mountain while pumping the brakes; afraid I was going to be stranded on the 5 still 2 hours from home. I panicked at the knowledge that car repairs are expensive, and I almost never have a substantial amount of savings to cover a car repair. I panicked… because I knew I’d have to call my dad and tell him that the car he still isn’t finished paying for needed to be fixed…again…



**Side note**

Fuckin’ Fords…

**End Side note**

As I glided to a stop along the side of the highway at the end of the ridge, I put the car in park, turned the key to the off position, and then turned it back on. It started perfectly. I was still shaking—this time from anxiety, not the energy drink—but I was so very relieved! I think the glitch may have had something to do with not turning off the cruise control when I put it in neutral. But it was fine the rest of the way home, thank God!

I’m kind of a spiritual person, by the way. I believe in fate or God’s plan or whatever you choose to call it, so what do I think saved my car that day? I think it was the cross that my Grandma had blessed that hangs from my rearview mirror. That blessed cross saved me and my car, and you can’t convince me otherwise. Besides, there’s no proof that it wasn’t the cross that saved my life. HA!