The Beast Is Truly Dead...Now.

In order for you to fully appreciate the lunacy of my day from automotive hell yesterday, please avail yourself by scrolling down to read both of my recent posts concerning the beast. Then scroll back up here so you can read the rest of the story.

Seriously. Do it.

Do it now, mister.

Anyway, here's the way the last 24 hours of my life has gone, starting from Tuesday night.

My parents dropped off to me last night, their 1998 Dodge Neon, effectively selling it to me for the expansive sum of $1.00 for title and paperwork purposes. I switched over my NH plates to the Neon so that today I could transfer the registration and reregister my vehicle for the next calendar year.

I took today off from work to accomplish this. Should be no problem, right???

HA!

I gather all of the necessary paperwork together (so I think) along with my checkbook and head out at 8:00. As I get into the Neon and start it up I notice, rather obviously that my driving perspective has sunk what seems like a mile, but actually only about a foot. The car starts easily but being a four cylinder engine, seems like it has the pickup and power of a lawn mower engine.

As I struggle to get the car up to passable highway speed, I hear some weird noises coming from the engine. But I keep moving. My exit comes up and the car is really struggling with each mile I travel. As I'm driving I notice that the RPM and speedometer gauges are not working at all and both the battery and check engine lights are lit on the dash. Finally, on one of Nashua's busiest non-highway roads, the car sputters out and dies as I pull into what passes for the breakdown lane on this road.

I find and turn on the hazard lights, which are barely visible, though I can hear them. I also see on the dash that the fuel and temperature gauges are bouncing up and down to the beat of the hazard lights. Since this road is a two-lane, one way street, oncoming traffic is mere inches from my door. After calling AAA for a tow, I decide the wise course of action is to stay inside the car. While I'm sitting there, I see four Nashua Police cruisers pass me with in a span of ten minutes, oblivious to the fact that my vehicle is a road hazard. I then decide to get out of the car from the passenger side. Within minutes, another cruiser comes by, this time seeing me standing there. The cruisers flashing lights come on and the officer pulls up beside me. I tell him that I've broken down and that I've got a tow on the way in 30 minutes or so. Officer then decides the best course is to push my vehicle into the dentist office parking lot directly across the street, off of the road, while I wait for the tow.

After officer is gone I call AAA to inform them of my new across the street location. Of course the tow driver never gets the message and has to do an around the block to get to me, as he was in the wrong lane.

Once loaded up, they drive me to a nearby garage that I've been to before. I go inside to start the ball rolling while the tow truck guys unload the car. Shortly after, the owner of the place asks me if I have a ride coming or would I need a courtesy ride somewhere. I tell him that I need to go to Nashua City Hall and 20 minutes later, we're in our way.

After I get dropped off, I wander in to city hall and to the registrar's offices where I promptly notice signs posted in either side of the doorway that "no vehicle registrations would be issued without a verification of permanent address. Verification of permanent address requires that I provide either a current utility bill, lease agreement or some other such document. This is the one bit of paperwork that I do not have with me.

So here I am, at Nashua City Hall (roughly in the center of the city), unable to complete my main task and with no ride back to my apartment, which is an estimated five miles away. (7/3 Ed. Note: Today on my way home from the post office, I drove the route that I walked and kept track of the distance, which turns out to be 4.85 miles. Not a bad guess, eh?)

I decide that, since it's a nice warm day and with nothing better to do that I'd benefit from walking back to my apartment, rather than pay whatever it costs for a taxi. As I'm walking, I talk to both of my parents on my cell phone and apprise them of my situation.

As I leave the downtown area, I notice that the sky above is getting darker and with a long walk ahead of me, I see a Brooks Pharmacy, which I surmise is my last chance to buy an umbrella, since my walking route will not take me past any other retail store. A fortuitous $9 investment, as it happened to rain lightly but steadily while I was still about a mile or so from home.

The one positive thing that I was able to accomplish today was that, on my walk, I happened to pass by the office of my auto insurance company. So I stopped in and had them switch my policy from the beast to the Neon. Took all of five minutes.

On my way back to the apartment, I notice a dead raccoon, squirrel and raven on the side of the road, in two different locations. None of these animals seemed to have been roadkill as none of them were flattened to a bloody pulp. They all seem to have just keeled over and died right where they were. These are things you notice when you walk. I also noticed a few new housing developments being built. Really nice, expensive homes, with over 1 1/2 acres of land for each lot. I begin to daydream....

Anyway...

Once I got to my apartment complex, I decided to stop in at the office to get another parking sticker for the new car. The woman behind the desk informed me that the policy for the complex is that all vehicles must be running and licensed to remain in the parking lot without being towed (at owner expense) and that I have 24 hours to remove any such vehicle from the premises.

Great. The beast won't run so how am I going to move the bloody thing?

I arrive back at my apartment at 11:30 AM, slightly soaked from the knees down (since my new umbrella came in handy) and out of breath. I decide to call up my brother A and ask him if he would be willing to drive up at some point today, so that I can buy a new battery for the beast and then drive it to my parents house for storage until I can either arrange to donate it or find someone to take the foolish thing away. He asks me to call him back around 16:00, since he's not sure how the weather will affect his landscaping jobs for the day. Okay, that's reasonable.

I spent the afternoon relaxing and making a few calls, trying to find out how much it would cost for me to have the beast towed from Nashua to Burlington. I was then told by a local towing company that it would cost $150.00, which includes the hook up and $3.00/mile.

No thanks.

At 15:45 A calls me and says that he's going to get a coffee and come on up to help me. When he gets here, we immediately set off for the evil empire (Wal-Mart) and I buy a battery a magazine and some cat food. My plan is to just use the new battery long enough to get the beast to my parents house, then take it out and return it to the store. Not the most honest thing to do but hey, I never claimed to be perfect.

After we swing by the garage where the Neon is getting fixed (so I can pick up one of my license plates) we get back to the apartment lot and A begins to uninstall the battery from the beast, only he can't get it out because of a rusty bolt connected to a small, rusty metal plate which secures the battery on the tray in the engine area. A suggests to me that we should jump start the old battery that's in the beast now and just drive it where it needs to go and not have to use the new battery at all.

Sounds like a good idea to me, so we do it. After adding a bit more transmission fluid we're off to see the wizard. I asked A to drive behind me just in case anything happens on the way. Good idea, that.

I'm on route 3 in Chelmsford, MA and I hear these horrible grinding and scraping noises coming from the engine which sound really bad. SUddenly I see a trail of black smoke coming from the rear end of the beast and lots of smoke coming from the engine block under the hood. As the beast grinds to a halt, I pull over into the breakdown lane, already knowing what has just happened. You see, six years ago my Plymouth Sundance died on the same highway (though in New Hampshire) in similar fashion. It was in fact the death of my Sundance that prompted ex and I to purchase the beast.

What happened, you ask?

I blew the head gasket in the beast. Warped & melted the crap out of it most likely.

For the record, the updated FINAL odometer reading on the beast is 142,695.0 miles. The place of death was about 600 or so yards shy of Exit 30B (for Route 495 South) in Chelmsford, Massachusetts in the breakdown lane of the main section of highway. For those of you who aren't familiar with the new configuration of this highway, there is a through section (which is where I was) and a section separated by Jersey barriers containing the route 110 and 495 exits. After this the highway becomes one again.

Now I've got to place another call to AAA for a flatbed tow for the final part of the trip. The woman I spoke to informed me that I've used up my five free assistance calls for the year and that I'll need to pay the tow truck driver approximately $85 for the hook up and tow.

Fan-tastic. But what choice do I have? None.

A is kind enough to spot me a Benjamin, until I can get to a bank when I get closer to the parents house.since I do not carry large amounts of cash on me (or any cash for that matter, most of the time).

I tell A that since AAA is ont he way that he doesn't need to wait with me. I thank him for his help and he takes off. About 40 minutes later I'm in the tow truck engaged in a conversation with the driver on how Pedro will do pitching tonight in his return to Fenway as a New York Met.

When we get to the parent's house, I only owe the driver $66.00 because I overestimated the mileage between where the beast died and where we needed to go. Still, it's $66.00 that I'd rather not have spent. Looks like a call to the insurance company is in order and a nasty letter to AAA. I've been a member for 13 years and have never heard of a limit on roadside assistance. And even if I had, I hardly think I've used 65 road assistance calls during my membership. (5/year x 13 years= 65), so you think they'd be able to carry one over. Coincidently I got my annual renewal form in the mail last week and was all set to mail it out at the end of July. Not now. They've just lost a longtime member, though in today's business culture, they probably could care less about my loyalty or business.

My dad was willing (what choice did he really have?) to ride me back to NH and even to stop back at the evil empire so that I could return the unused battery. By the time I got back to my apartment, it was near to 21:00.

What a day. Not one, but two cars crapped out on me today. Unbelievable. I tell you, if it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any.