The Road goes ever on
and on
Down from the door
where it began.
Now far ahead the
Road has gone,
And I must follow, if
I can,
Pursuing it with
weary feet,
Until it joins some
larger way,
Where many paths and
errands meet.
And whither then? I
cannot say.
from Book One of The
Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
May has been so up and down, sideways and
inside-out that I’m beginning to wonder how we arrived at the 31st this quick.
Personally, my month has been wilder than a box full of hungry kittens !
On the tenth of May I was able to finally conduct an interment of my dear
mother’s remains and the date seemed as good as any, specifically before or
after Mother’s Day. I have been trying to get my life back in order since that
day and have lost precious writing time which I’ll never be able to recoup. It
has reminded me of the words of Bilbo Baggins which Frodo remembers before he
starts his own adventures outside of The Shire, in the very beginning of the
first book of Lord of the Rings (i.e. The Fellowship of the Ring):
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going
out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t
keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
During this most reflective of passages
something deeply profound is conveyed which has stuck with me and reminds one
that you can make a difference in your life and the lives around you no
matter where you end up or land.
It is simply that, in life, ‘there is only one road; that it is like a great
river: its springs are at every doorstep and every path is its tributary.’ That
paraphrase being said- the following account of my life from May 10, 2018 to
May 23, 2018 shall be submitted with the idea in mind that you’ll get a glimpse
into a period of my life which is devoid of any writing only because I couldn’t
get my hands on something with which to write or when I did there was something
infinitely more pressing that I had to do.
Even
though I was to preside over this informal interment of my mother’s urn (into
the plot she spent more than a year paying for in installments in the 1970s) I
was, in the words of the family service rep, ‘fashionably late’ but everything
had been set up already when I arrived (canopy, seating, ground opened, etc.)
and ready to roll, so to speak. Since I was in possession of Mom’s urn and
sealed box everyone that attended had to wait about ten minutes for me to
surrender the box and later while Ms. Seaton and her aides were able to
position the vaulted box over the area where it was to be lowered. I read a
poem, which is an entry on this blog, as a Mother’s Day tribute. (See, To My Mother, May 13th entry)
I gave everyone who attended a chance to
speak and it was quite uplifting, for the most part, to hear what family
members had to say. The gathering was unbelievably small but I hadn’t invited many
people. I decided on family primarily, from which only a few invitees attended.
I did not want to turn it into something Mom would rather skip herself but we
all seemed to agree on one premise. Mom had a way of making sure the people
around her felt loved. It was her gift and her mission in life, I believe. She
had the following phrase printed on the back of her business cards some years
after she started her salon (eventually turning out to be her mission statement)
because she backed it up with chats which always centered on her faith in Jesus
Christ with each and every customer. The phrase is, “Introducing Jesus to you
is the best way I know to say “thank you”. John 3:16”. In her day, it was
well-received by almost everyone. Today I’m not sure how it would be perceived-
given the times- but it garnered a clientele which encompassed most of the
neighborhood and included men’s haircuts in the bargain. She wasn’t a barber so
Mom styled and permed men’s hair at a
time when it was fashionable.
Before the lowering of the vault with my
mother’s urn and box inside I was given three roses to put inside the vault and
put them around the box. I thought Mom would like that- she loved roses and I
still maintain her rosebushes in memory of her. No one stayed to see the grave
being sodded over and even I stood well back. I felt good about knowing that
she was loved enough by me to make sure that her wishes were honored. It was my
attempt and intention to try to make our investments in each other equal. I
hope I made her proud that day.
Afterward, the drive home was in
bumper-to-bumper traffic and the hottest May 10th in Denver since
who-knows-when, I’m sure. At some point when I was less than a mile away from
home I decided to briefly stop in a parking lot to get my bearings, take a
break for something to drink and get a few dollar store items. When I restarted
the car it kept cranking but the engine wouldn’t turn over! That’s never
happened with my car that I can recollect. I’ve owned this car for 27 years and
have only had regular maintenance and replacement parts put on it. I was
stunned and was without cell phone service- I could see the time but couldn’t
make any calls. Several people, for the next four hours, allowed me to use
their cell phones to call AAA to get roadside assistance. First, a
diagnostician came and went over everything that was within AAA scope of
services. He said he couldn’t find anything wrong- other than the fact that it
wouldn’t start. His solution was to have the car towed. By this time two hours
had flown by and I was now exhausted. It took three more phone calls to get the
tow people out and they also did a diagnosis on it just in case it decided to
just start, I suppose. It sounded the same. Cranking but not turning over. The
driver thought perhaps it was a fuel pump failure.
Once we finally got going it should’ve
only taken them another ten to fifteen minutes to get me and the car to my
house. When we were half a mile from my house a garbage truck driver managed to
knock off the driver’s side mirror off the tow truck with the garbage truck
side mirror and it was completely shattered. It looked deliberate but who
knows? Maybe the garbage truck driver was having a bad day or something. Did
they exchange info and go on? No. The driver of the tow truck got upset and
insisted on getting the police out to check it out. I agreed with him that it
looked deliberate but stayed neutral. I just wanted to go home at this point.
The AAA people came to give him support while we were waiting for police. After
more than an hour the police finally ambled by and shook their heads ‘no’ and
left. By this time I was just as desperate to get home as any homeless person
ever was and I wanted to find out who I could get to work on the car. I sure
didn’t plan on spending my entire afternoon in a parking lot or a tow truck!
Five hours after I initially found out
that my car wouldn’t start I was delivered home (1:30- 6:30 !) with my car
deposited on my driveway and no prospects for being able to get anything more done
that day. I needed to take a shower, eat something before my stomach gave up
the ghost and try to figure out what I was going to do. Not exactly a happy
camper was I. No one pays nearly $2,000 to be as unhappy as I was at that
moment but in the ensuing days it got a little better and then much worse.
By Sunday the 13th I managed to
contact a nearby car rental place which I have used before. It was perhaps the
nicest thing I’ve done for myself in awhile so I decided to have it for the
weekend and get my car towed first thing on Monday to a tire service place that
also works on cars in general. I hate being without a car to drive. I receive
regular e-mails from this particular rental car business that offer weekend
getaway deals so I felt confident that it would be a good idea. One objective
to this is that I had planned on going back to the cemetery to make sure
everything was as it should be.
I received no calls from AAA on
this dilemma. As a matter of fact I was stunned when I called them
about trying to get more help on this issue to be told by a phone attendant
that even though I’ve been a loyal member for 39 years it was only basic ($55 a
year!) and they didn’t offer more than what I’d received. Further, I could only
get roadside assistance 3 times on the same issue. (I had just paid my
membership on March 31st so that’s the thanks I received after all
these years!) No one at AAA has ever talked to me like that before so I chalked
it up to today’s rampant apathy. Not happily, though! Preferential treatment to
customer loyalty is almost a joke any more. Century Link is a prime example.
After I got the brush off from AAA, I
spent the next three days, before renting the car, combing through the Yellow
Pages and trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong with my car which I
tried to start several times while it sat in my driveway. On Sunday after I’d
managed to get the rental car I got groceries initially because I also had
happened to run out of almost everything by then. I took flowers from my own
yard to my aunt Anne because I figured no one would visit her and I was right.
I was the only person who showed up for Mother’s Day even though she’s not my
parent. She has two grown, married children (with children) - my cousins- but
she spent the day alone except for my visit.
Once I finally found an auto repair that I
thought would be able to handle the problem, I called AAA and set up my last free tow on Wednesday morning the 16th,
to have the car taken to Firestone and followed the tow truck in the rental all
the way out there. All this time I had been looking through the internet at
sites like RockAuto.com to find out what was available for parts on my 1990 car
because its make and model were obsolete practically since the day that it
showed up at the dealership where I bought it, (until 1997-unbeknownst to me!) Not
for a minute did I think it was a simple matter of my battery being low because
two people from AAA had supposedly done a thorough diagnosis on that issue back
on the tenth.
As soon as I got the car there they set up
yet another diagnosis for the car even though I told them that AAA had already
ran a battery of tests twice. Then I was told that they may not get to it that
day. The next day at noon I received a call from a Firestone rep saying that
the computer (?) needed to be replaced and that it happened to be the most
expensive part on the car. Right at that moment something suddenly didn’t
‘smell’ right to me but since all the diagnosis on the car had come up with no
clue as to the problem I had no real cause to doubt it at that point.
Days went by and then a weekend while I
went about the business of my life which is always filled with lots of physical
work, necessary shopping I needed to accomplish and trying to get to my
writing. I had wanted to get started ASAP on ordering a nice marker for Mom’s
site and got a call from Kim at Fairmount on the 18th- a Friday but
I didn’t have any decisions made for her because I was trying to wrap my head
around the delay to everything and what it could possibly cost me. If you’ll
recall, I just got myself out of debt by the end of last year and managed to
garner something to get my Mom in her plot. This was something I could not have
foreseen and would not have even guessed at, leave alone planned. I had to put
it off since I hadn’t been able to get in touch with my Dad since the day I’d
seen him at the interment.
A
weekend went by and then I started to get concerned and started calling
Firestone early Monday morning. I was put off ‘til Tuesday and decided that
whether I had a car or not- the rental needed to go back to the rental place
and I told them I was bringing the rental back on Tuesday. I had never planned
to have it longer than the weekend so I knew it was going to get to vacation
bill proportions. I had just got off the phone with the rental agency and now
Firestone was telling me I could pick up the car immediately. I had to take the
rental back after running the last errands I needed to for the day, have them
drive me back home and take a bus out to the Firestone.
When I went to take the bus to Firestone
it had to start raining, of course, but I was prepared. I was shocked at what
the final bill from Firestone was (hundreds!) and could only put it on a credit
card. ARGH ! This put the total fiasco tally past $1,000. Hadn’t I just
defeated something similar? So much for a marker on Mom’s grave. I suppose
that’ll take another five years depending on how long it takes me to get out of
debt again. Groan.
The ensuing hours on the 22nd
were absolutely unbelievable! When I opened the car door to start it and go
home I heard the weirdest noise I ever heard coming from the dash. I’d
certainly never heard that before and when I turned the key to start the car it
cranked for a long time before it finally started. The engine sounded the same
as it did on the day of the 10th on the ride home and showed no performance
difference. The only difference was the noise that wouldn’t go away.
When I got it home I turned off the ignition and the noise started again as
soon as I opened the car door and took the key out of the ignition. I decided,
on a hunch, to put the key in the ignition and close the door without trying to
turn it on and the noise suddenly stopped. As soon as I took the key out of the
ignition the noise started up. Two more tries with the door closed or opened
revealed that the door had nothing to do with the sound.
I was floored at this noisy new feature
but had to go inside to get some pressing things done and went back out within
fifteen minutes. The noise was still going and I tried to start the car. It was
completely dead. I couldn’t even hear a click leave alone the ignition sound and
every time I took the key out of the ignition the new noise started. To say the
least, I was livid. The original problem was now even worse and I’d just paid a
pile of money for a car I couldn’t start at all now! At that
instant I knew that the computer had nothing to do with the car starting or not
starting but was quite surprised that they hadn’t really fixed the problem at
all.
I went inside and called Firestone and
told them what had happened including the noise. The phone attendant told me
that they would send a tow truck in the morning, free of charge, to take it
back to them and find out what the problem was which helped alleviate some of
the aggravation but being as how I’d been without my car now for 12 days it was
getting to be a bit much. When the tow truck driver called the next morning I
told him what had happened the previous day and the past 2 week’s history. He
called Firestone and then called here again and said that he would be towing it
there and I was to talk to Murray
when I got there. I let the tow truck driver hear the noise coming from my dash
when he showed up and he didn’t seem at all surprised. I rode with the tow
truck to Firestone and noticed before we pulled out of my driveway that he had
put some device on my battery.
When we got there I talked to Murray and then I believe
he personally worked on my car. After only a short period of time he came into
the waiting lobby of the store and said it was fine, no noise and it started
immediately. He tore up the repair order and said he didn’t do anything. He
brought me to my car and he said for me to start it myself. I opened the door
and there was no more noise. When I finally got myself adjusted in my car
correctly and turned the key it started right up like it always does. No extra,
mysterious noise of any sort. He said he didn’t have to do anything except
reconnect my battery cables and he just put them back on. (I would’ve never been
able to start my car or gotten home with battery cables unconnected the
previous evening!) I told him that the tow truck driver had hooked something up
to the battery just before he towed my car and that was probably why the
battery cables were disconnected.
While I was driving home, I put two and
two together and realized that the last tow truck driver was the person who
solved the problem. My battery was most likely in need of attention and that
was probably all that was wrong on the 10th. Why that wasn’t
detected by three diagnosticians is the real mystery. Meanwhile, I just spent
$550 for a so-called computer I probably didn’t need to replace. I had asked Murray about why the
attendant refused to let me take the parts taken off and he gave the same
answer she did the previous night even though I was promised that I would be
given back any parts taken off of my car. This was so it could be sent back to
the factory they bought the new one from which they will rebuild (?) This is
quite the deal for Firestone and a total and complete rip-off to the unsuspecting
consumer. If that’s true why wouldn’t they offer a rebate to the car owner?
Where’s my proof that they replaced anything or took anything off my car?
Well, my car is starting like it always
did but now I’m in debt when I shouldn’t be. Far be it for someone to admit
they made a mistake and prevent the customer from paying dearly for it! What a
contrast to the almost angelic people who let me use their cell phones to call
for help! They didn’t have to help me but they did. It didn’t put a penny in
their pockets to assure me and allow me to use their prized possessions. One
grounds worker at the parking lot site even gave me a bottle of water because
it was really hot that day. One of them assured me she would come back to see
if AAA ever came! I’m so glad our paths intersected for even a few minutes or
more. They helped keep me from having a day no one wants to endure after
burying a loved one.
When you’re given a chance, lend a
hand where you can !
The Castle Lady
