You know, I saw
that big pink puddle on the parking garage floor Wednesday night as I got into
my car, and thought to myself “some poor bastard spilled something LARGE down here,” and I imagined Big Gulps and Strawberry Cooladas and all manner of supersized summer drinks. It wasn’t until I was
on the ramp headed up to the exit that I imagined myself as the spiller, when multiple
warning lights of various pictorial shapes sprang to life (including one that reads, in inch-high letters, “STOP”
– for the icon-impaired, I suppose). So I did what I always do when my car wages a campaign of terror, and I pulled
over and got out of it.
Ten minutes later
and I have located my owners manual, opened the hood, and have read the part about making sure there is coolant in the car,
and making sure the coolant level falls between the “minimum” level and the “maximum” level. As the
little plastic coolant tank appears to be bone dry, I spot the problem right away. I realize I have no coolant in my trunk,
and this is when I hear the car pull up behind me and a voice asking if I am all right. Turns out to be the wife of a colleague,
who drives the exact same car I do, and we commiserate over the tendency of VW’s to drink oil. This is not relevant,
and she eventually states she has no coolant with her and is sorry she cannot help me, then drives off. I continue to ponder
the arid state of my engine.
Miraculously,
the cell phone works in the parking garage, but no one at AAA is answering. As I think about all the things I will say to
AAA during business hours the next day, I look up and see one of our tax partners wandering my way, and I thank God it’s
this one because he’s from Texas and probably understands how cars work. (Minor digression: I have yet to meet a guy
from Boston who knows more about cars than where to put the gas in and how often to get the oil changed. I don’t mean
this critically – I don’t know much more than that, either – and I am probably a bit biased here, since
my family is pretty self-sufficient with respect to all things mechanical. Case in point – the sewer line ruptured at
my grandfather’s house one memorable Easter weekend, and my cousins showed up shortly thereafter with a backhoe, piping,
and assorted welding and other equipment. The whole repair took a couple hours, start to finish, and didn’t require
outside assistance. I realize most families don’t operate this way, but where I’m from – in Pennsylvania – basic automotive knowledge is a given, especially
for men. Women take pride in dessert-making and can get any stain out of a white tee shirt, but that’s another story.)
Triple-A Dave
took a look and concurred with my diagnosis (though he questioned me on the pink leakage – “antifreeze is usually
green, isn’t it?” – and he sounded a bit amused, until he looked more closely into the tank and spotted
a few pink drops hanging around the bottom, restoring me to basic automotive credibility in his eyes). One of the parking
garage employees was hosing down the floor about thirty feet away, and Dave flagged him down with the goal of filling the
tank with water, which would be good enough to get me home. Parking Garage Guy no habla ingles, but grasped that we needed
coolant and, miraculously, had some in his trunk. I gave him ten bucks for it, filled the coolant tank, and switched the car
on. This is where Triple A Dave earned my undying loyalty – he got under the car (on a wet, dirty parking garage floor)
and checked to make sure the coolant wasn’t leaking out too fast to prevent my safe arrival home. (In the back of my
head, all I could hear was my mother’s voice, reprimanding my father – “Did you have to [fill in the blank
with messy activity] in your good shirt???” – and Triple A Dave was most certainly wearing a good shirt, in the
way of tax partners, and was most certainly messy by the time he was done.)
Thursday morning,
I added some more coolant and took the car to the VW dealership. I was told that since I didn’t have an appointment,
there was no guaranty as to when they would be able to look at it. I replied that, had I known all the coolant was suddenly
going to drain out onto the garage floor, I would have planned better. The VW representative became very still, and I could
almost see him thinking – “oh, she’s one of those difficult women”
– and he was very polite in his response and I didn’t even really listen, but I smiled politely back and then
I left.
To spare you
the details, it’s Sunday now and I won’t have a car till Tuesday at the earliest. Reasons involve parts not in
stock, and an inability of VW to even look at my car until late Friday night due to the aforementioned failure on my part
to make an appointment, of which I was reminded multiple times as I attempted to get a status on my car’s repair. (I
am slightly comforted by the vision of a very large, green, poisonous puddle in their holding bay somewhere.)
So I’ve
been taking the T to work in the morning and home at night, and as it’s been about seven or eight years since I’ve
done that, it’s an experience. The system itself works great – I walk to the end of my street and catch the bus,
which for ninety cents takes me to Harvard Square. There, I spend another $1.25 to catch the train downtown, where I get off at South Station and walk six blocks
to my office. For $2.15, I have travelled from my house in Watertown to my office in Boston’s
financial district, and door-to-door took no more than 45 minutes. The trip home is longer by ten minutes or so, largely due
to the wait for the bus in Harvard Square.
All of which
leads me to conclude that public transportation would be fine, if it weren’t for the public.
On my first day,
I was pleased to obtain a seat on the train and opened up my magazine. (Wanting to fit in, I took note of what other people
were reading. Most were perusing the free paper handed out by the homeless at the entrance to the T station. Since I didn’t
see any intriguing headlines, I dared to eat a peach and carried on with my New Yorker.) Happiness lasted for two stops, until
an Asian women in her fifties wearing rubber gloves and a stained green jacket boarded, and stood in front of me. She appeared
to be wearing the gloves in order to avoid germs as she grasped the metal poles in the car, an irony if ever there was because
the odor emanating from her jacket most certainly had bacterial origins. As the ride wore on, she leaned further toward me
and I correspondingly moved back until my head was pressed hard against the window. I thought perhaps I was overreacting,
but soon was validated by the woman next to me, who began breathing through a sleeve pressed to her mouth. Eventually, the
Asian woman disembarked and the jacket-whiff moved off with her.
The next night,
on the bus home, I sat in front of a young man who looked fresh out of school and in the early phases of his first important
job. The bus was relatively quiet until his cell phone rang. He answered, and the party on the other end apparently could
not hear him very well. The conversation sounded like this:
“Dude,
I’m on the bus.”
“The
bus, I’m on the bus from Harvard Square to the house.”
“The bus!”
“THE BUS!!!”
After that last
screamed response, I turned around gave him The Look. (Ann knows about The Look and often checks with me to make sure I am
not using it on my boss. Ann is actually the person who christened it The Look and who fears it most. Ann clawed her way to
the vice presidency of a major financial institution, has needed a personal protection detail at times in her life, and manages
the affairs of her strong willed elderly mother daily, so Ann is not easily intimidated. Still, The Look.) And so I unleash
The Look on this person, who barely flinches – really, he give me the facial expression equivalent of an EEG flatline,
and I want to tell him to stop breathing through his mouth – and I turn back around. I am slightly rewarded by the smiles
of the faces of the passengers who are watching this little drama, and I thank the good Lord I am getting off in a few stops.
On Monday, I
begin again. I have spent the weekend plotting my public transportation avoidance strategies for the week, which involve taxis,
carefully worded yet truthful expense reporting, and the striking up of friendships with downtown-bound commuting neighbors.
My plan is to hope, pray, and do my personal best to nag the VW people into fixing my car early in the week – it’s
for the public good.
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