Okay, I can’t guarantee that’s the reason it happened, but it is kind of suspicious that on Monday I was feeling annoyed that I had nothing interesting to blog about, and then on Tuesday the good car died.

There are two cars in my life.  The boy’s car, which is a beautiful Subaru, is the good car.  My car, a 23-ish year-old white minivan I call the pregnant cow, is the bad car.  The bad car gets me around town, is very temperamental (it works correctly when it feels like it), and isn’t exactly what I’d call trustworthy.  The good car does everything that’s asked of it and more.

So, the boy’s job requires him to work long hours driving around the eastern side of the state.  It’s nothing for him to put in 150-250 miles in a day.  Obviously, he takes the good car, because if he tried that with the bad car I’m pretty sure it would just freeze in the driveway and go, “Nope, not happenin’.”

I went with him on Tuesday.  I do this occasionally.  If I don’t, then the majority of our married life interaction is him coming in between 11:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. and collapsing on the bed to sleep.   Funnily, enough, I like to have conversations with my husband that don’t involve snoring.

His work had sent him up to the Sioux City area for the day.  He had done the lion’s share of the driving, but by the time we grabbed supper and were ready to head home, he was absolutely dead on his feet and he asked me to drive.  So, there we were, headed home on I-29, when the car began having problems.  About five miles north of Onawa, the car began vibrating violently.  We agreed to try to make it to Onawa, because at least then we’d be able to park at a gas station.  Unfortunately, the car didn’t agree with our decision.  Instead, not quite three miles north of Onawa, I heard a “ping” like a snapping rubber band, all the warning lights briefly flashed on, and the the car had no power.  I glided us to the shoulder of the road, and there we sat with a dead car.

That’s Onawa circled in red.  We were so close, and yet so vey far away.

We sat there for about an hour trying to get the car to come back to life, but it was all for naught.  Fortunately, the boy got a hold of his folks, and they willingly drove up to where we were  and rescued us from the side of the road.  We finally got home just a little after 2 a.m.

The car was towed into Omaha yesterday, and we found out that that “ping” was the car throwing a rod.  Apparently, for a car to run, it needs a working engine; and for an engine to work, the rods need to be not thrown.

I spent the better part of today with a phone glued to my head, calling one auto shop after another.  My spiel of, “Our car threw a rod, and now the engine doesn’t work.  Is this something you guys can fix?” came out of my mouth so many times, I began to work on autopilot.  I got a pile of estimates (starting $2500 and going all the way up to $8000.  Apparently, there’s no standard price list that everyone works off when it comes to this sort of thing.), and then had to sit down and relay all the information to the boy as he was at work.

Ultimately, we narrowed it down to two places, and the boy left the final decision in my hands.  A very scary thing to do to someone who struggles with decision making as much as I do.  I did make a choice, though, for better or for worse.

So, off good car went this afternoon, to a place that will make it all better!

I’ll be honest, I’m scared right now.  I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to pay for this.  We’ve already sunk a ton of money into maintenance of this car this summer, plus we had to replace our house a.c., and I’ve had some “fun” with my health.  Please, please, keep us in your thoughts and prayers (and if you want, check out our GoFundMe: Help Fix Our Car).