Happy Friday the freaking 13th...

I don't think I'll be doubting the unluckiness of Friday the 13th for a while after this one.

My mom and I were headed up to Rockford to look for a new floor lamp for my bedroom. Just that morning Mom had been thinking to herself that it was really lucky that our van (a '96 Grand Caravan) had come this far without any problems with the transmission or anything like that.

Big mistake.

We drive up to Rockford and get into the left-turn lane to turn into Menards. When the light turns green Mom makes to pull out...only the car doesn't move, we hear a clunk and it feels like we hit something.

Mom immediately puts on the breaks trying to figure out what's going on. Her first thought was that the transmission had dropped (mine was that we had hit something), so she puts it in park so she can go check. Well after whatever it was fell, putting the car into gear doesn't work anymore; we start rolling backwards. And there's a semi right behind us. So Mom slams on the breaks again, puts on the flashers and we just sit there. The driver of the semi comes over to see if we need any help (thank God he was that understanding!), right when Mom is calling the cops to come direct traffic around us. So while we're waiting for the cop to show up, who's got the job of getting out of the car every couple of red lights and telling the morons behind us that have no idea what emergency flashers mean (and there were a few of them) that they had to go around us?

Me.

We had one good piece of luck in this. One of the drivers near us when the Mishap happened worked in the service area of a Lou Bachrodt not too far from where we were, and she knew enough about cars to know what had probably happened, and she called a tow truck for us (thank you!). We ended up waiting about fifteen or twenty minutes for the guy to get there, though, and when he finally did he came in from in front of us, obviously intending to do a U-turn or a 3-point turn around to get into our lane, instead of coming up from behind us and pulling into the lane ahead of us. But no, that would have made sense wouldn't it? So, the tow truck guy comes in from the front and while he's trying to pull off a turn around nearly causes an accident (although it was only partially his fault; the rest of the blame falls on the morons who were too impatient to wait their damn turn). The cop yelled at him to go around through the mall roads and come up from behind, so he did.

So the car got up onto the tow truck all right, and we get taken to the service area of the Lou Bachrodt. The tow truck guy had enough sense (despite his driving) to bring the part with him. Turns out it wasn't part of the transmission. Part of the axle had snapped off, and I mean clean off. The cop had been the one to find the part under the car and recognize it, and he said he'd never seen anything like that before. After leaving the car at the Lou Bachrodt Mom and I headed to the mall where we had a late lunch and did a little shopping while waiting for my brother to drive up to Rockford to get us (thank God we had the foresight to get a third car). So now we're going to be short a car for at least a week, because Dad uses the Jeep to get to work and Jeff uses our third car to drive to school over the summer.

All of this, and we're still looking for a floor lamp for my bedroom.

-Lady Iapetus, She of Many Identities

Happy Friday the freaking 13th...

I don't think I'll be doubting the unluckiness of Friday the 13th for a while after this one.

My mom and I were headed up to Rockford to look for a new floor lamp for my bedroom. Just that morning Mom had been thinking to herself that it was really lucky that our van (a '96 Grand Caravan) had come this far without any problems with the transmission or anything like that.

Big mistake.

We drive up to Rockford and get into the left-turn lane to turn into Menards. When the light turns green Mom makes to pull out...only the car doesn't move, we hear a clunk and it feels like we hit something.

Mom immediately puts on the breaks trying to figure out what's going on. Her first thought was that the transmission had dropped (mine was that we had hit something), so she puts it in park so she can go check. Well after whatever it was fell, putting the car into gear doesn't work anymore; we start rolling backwards. And there's a semi right behind us. So Mom slams on the breaks again, puts on the flashers and we just sit there. The driver of the semi comes over to see if we need any help (thank God he was that understanding!), right when Mom is calling the cops to come direct traffic around us. So while we're waiting for the cop to show up, who's got the job of getting out of the car every couple of red lights and telling the morons behind us that have no idea what emergency flashers mean (and there were a few of them) that they had to go around us?

Me.

We had one good piece of luck in this. One of the drivers near us when the Mishap happened worked in the service area of a Lou Bachrodt not too far from where we were, and she knew enough about cars to know what had probably happened, and she called a tow truck for us (thank you!). We ended up waiting about fifteen or twenty minutes for the guy to get there, though, and when he finally did he came in from in front of us, obviously intending to do a U-turn or a 3-point turn around to get into our lane, instead of coming up from behind us and pulling into the lane ahead of us. But no, that would have made sense wouldn't it? So, the tow truck guy comes in from the front and while he's trying to pull off a turn around nearly causes an accident (although it was only partially his fault; the rest of the blame falls on the morons who were too impatient to wait their damn turn). The cop yelled at him to go around through the mall roads and come up from behind, so he did.

So the car got up onto the tow truck all right, and we get taken to the service area of the Lou Bachrodt. The tow truck guy had enough sense (despite his driving) to bring the part with him. Turns out it wasn't part of the transmission. Part of the axle had snapped off, and I mean clean off. The cop had been the one to find the part under the car and recognize it, and he said he'd never seen anything like that before. After leaving the car at the Lou Bachrodt Mom and I headed to the mall where we had a late lunch and did a little shopping while waiting for my brother to drive up to Rockford to get us (thank God we had the foresight to get a third car). So now we're going to be short a car for at least a week, because Dad uses the Jeep to get to work and Jeff uses our third car to drive to school over the summer.

All of this, and we're still looking for a floor lamp for my bedroom.

-Lady Iapetus, She of Many Identities