Bright Green Liquid

It's crazy how quickly things can go from "This is great!" to "Ah! This is awful!"

Like in the space of two minutes really.

One reaches their breaking point, and just can't take it any more.

A flash change.

A flash situation.

And WHAM everything is out to get you.

*shakes head*

I'd been worried about the Brake Light.

Ah.

Now such an inconsequential thing.

Worrying about a light.

When bigger things were on the horizon.

You see, there was more to the fact that my brake light has been flashing every time I turn left.

I just didn't really think it was 'more'

A couple of mornings ago, as I was driving to work,

I noticed 'water' on my windshield.

I didn't think much of it. Thinking it was like frost, or spray from a car in front of me flinging up the liquid onto my windshield.

I had an inkling something was wrong however, when I used my wiper blades to clear away the liquid.

Only for it smear across the glass.

*frowns*

Water doesn't do that.

Not unless it's salt water and since it hasn't snowed yet...there isn't any salt on the roads to cause that smear.

A liberal use of the wiper fluid got rid of the liquid particles.

Only to have them show up seconds later.

...But only in the morning.

Only when I was driving to work.

This morning it happened again.

And again, I figured I'd figure out the problem a little later, after all I had other things going on.

Like....spending a lot of money in preparation for my early Christmas gift to me. ^^

(hint. It holds fish and I needed rocks for the bottom)

So things were all fine and dandy today.

Spent a lot of money on my purchases for work.

Came out to the car to put my things into it before driving to home.

And....noticed a rather large dark stain on the pavement under my car.

Internally I groaned.

Dark stains only equals a leak of some sort.

And this was a large stain. Like the length of a football if not as wide, curving a bit.

What in the world?

Automatically my mind flashed to the last time (not the brake light time) I'd gone to a Jiffy Lube and they'd mentioned that I had a couple small leaks here and there in the oil and...a couple other places...transmission? *shrugs* It's an old car. So...was this a major or a minor leak? Maybe the stain had been there before I came to work? No...it looked fresh.

So putting away my purchases, I opened the lid to look inside.

And noticed that there seemed to be a bit of green liquid on the inside edge of the hood, as well as near the fan thingy at the front of the car. (I'm guessing that's the radiator? I don't know cars.)

Green liquid? Not good. But I couldn't really see a source for it.

Turned on the engine. Watched the gears and fans and pully's move....

and again couldn't really see anything.

So I did what any person would do.

I called my parents for an opinion.

My Daddoo was busy, so in the meantime I sent him a text with the question of "What liquid in a car is green?"

And then headed out on the freeway to go home.

Nearly home I got a response.

"It's the Radiator."

My heart skipped a beat. Uhoh.

"Or it's antifreeze"

My heart started beating again. Oh. Antifreeze would be an easy fix.

I desperately hoped it would be antifreeze.

But upon parking in the driveway of my place and continuing the conversation with Daddoo.

It seemed more likely that it was the radiator.

Especially since when I opened the lid, I could see more of that green liquid there by the radiator.

Which basically confirmed....I had a radiator problem.

That I would need to get fixed. Sooner rather than later.

But how soon? Was it a "Need to go right now to the nearest Jiffy Lube?" sort of urgency, or was it the "bring it up home to the local mechanic shop my family likes later in the week urgent?"

Of course it had to be the former. *exhales*

My Daddoo was like "No, you don't want to drive that up here!"

Oh that's.....reassuring.

I'd literally just been driving my car around.

But the 45 minute drive home was out of the question.

Which meant. This was serious.

However, I didn't know if Jiffy Lube would fix my problem or just say "yes you have a problem, but no we can't help you here" and send me off to find a mechanic.

A call to them basically confirmed that. Yes we can take a look but no we may not be able to solve the problem.

And that's when the pieces started to crumble.

I'd been holding it together then.

But being told that my car needed to be fixed, but stranded in collegetown with no nearby known place to fix it, and the fact that I'd just spent a lot of money, needed to spend more money later in the month, needing to pay rent...the news I would need to get my car fixed and spend who knows how much money....

Yah.

Hopefully I kept it together well enough over the phone as I asked for a mechanic they would recommend. Which thankfully they provided one.

I looked up the mechanic as I returned to my car to see once more if I could find a leak.

To be confronted with two more problems.

One. The mechanic wasn't open on weekends. Y_Y ugh.

Two.

There was a fresh stain under my car.

I'd only been away from said car for 20 minutes.

Yet the stain underneath was already slightly larger than a baseball.

Which hit home that.

Oh yes, I would need to get this problem fixed soon.

Because if I was leaking liquid that fast, it would only mean a matter of time before the liquid was gone, and whatever it was used for...wouldn't be happy to have no liquid with it.

So I had to act fast.

BUT THE MECHANIC WAS CLOSED!

It didn't help that it was nearly 6pm. As that's when Jiffy Lube closed.

But at the urging of Daddoo, I drove down to the nearest Jiffy Lube.

-Well, I had a bit of a break down before that point. You know the awful can't speak without your voice choking with tears/emotion sort of break down.

As a part of me already had prepared for the worst.

As I told Kikay that I was dashing down to the shop, and to keep her phone by her in case I would need to call her to come pick me up.

A part of me already knew.

I used the GPS on my phone to find the Jiffy Lube.

It took the most random slow route ever. O.o

Probably for the best really, a blessing in disguise that I didn't hit any roads above 30mph.

I managed to calm myself down enough to be able to interact normally with the mechanic.

"Hey how are you today?"

"Oh you know, could be better."

"Hopefully we'll make it better! What do you need? An oil change?"

"No...actually I think I may have a problem with my radiator...."

"Yah, I could smell it."

O.o Smell the radiator?

I hadn't smelt anything out of the ordinary.....

I wonder if its one of those scents you pick up working constantly in a mechanic place with different oils...

In any case.

Not 15 minutes later.

I was told the news.

Ha.

Guy was like. "Who owns this Make and Model?"

cue me raising my hand. ;) lol "I do."

"Come with me."

Oh, coming with the mechanic to check out the car is never a good sign.

Still, I held to the faintest of hopes it was just a tube that was bad and nothing worse."

Yah, it was worse.

The dude showed me a hairline crack in my radiator about the length of a pen really.

"How long have you been driving with this like that!" he exclaimed.

"I don't know...I only noticed an issue a couple of days ago."

"No! No! It's been here much longer than a couple of days!"

....Well sorry for not being a car fanatic and lifting the hood of my car every third day....I hadn't looked inside the thing in six months before earlier today. Why would I notice anything wrong?

Oh.

It could have been deadly wrong.

"How far away do you live?"

"A bit over a mile"

"And you drove here!"

"Yah...."

"Freeway driving not good!!" (I hadn't taken the freeway to the shop actually) "Your radiator could blow!"

Oh.

OH.

Well....that's heart stoppingly heart stopping.

"Your radiator blow! It destroy the engine! Huge fire ball!!"

Uh....yah....kinda already got that mental image when you said the radiator could blow up....

Of course my thoughts already drifting back to the fact that I had just driven on the freeway under an hour ago. :S

The Guy was rather adamant. "You have someone who can come pick you up? I would suggest you keep the car here, park it. Don't drive it. I can fix this, but not today. (since they were nearly closed) I call up shop and see if I can get radiator, but not til Monday, fix it then."

*exhales*

Should have known it wouldn't be fixed today.

Should have known it would require me becoming carless. =ah you see I did know as I told Kikay to expect my call.

But I agreed with the guy. If he said it was going to blow then I wasn't about to risk my life driving the car around any longer than I had to. So a wobbling couple of phone calls later, first to Daddoo to explain the diagnosis to him, and then to Kikay to pick me up....

I left my poor car, sitting by itself in the shop. Waiting for the Monday that's two days away.

But that brought on another set of problems.

I no longer had a car.

But I did have work.

Work Monday morning.

Work that started before the Jiffy Lube opened.

which meant....I needed a way to get to work.

That's where more stress came in.

Trying to figure out the best route.

Do I hope for the best and plan to have my car back Monday evening, so I just need to find a ride to work Monday.

Or do I plan for the worst and not expect to see my car until later in the week? Which, since my parents are amazing and offered to drop by one of their cars, would be perfect.

But which was it?

Monday only?

Or week?

I didn't want to have my parents drive a car all the way down, only for them to come pick it up like 24 hours later.

But if I needed their car to get around, it would be better to have it now instead of them having to make the drive later.

Ah.

Stress upon stress because of all the unknowns.

Thankfully though, we got it all sorted out transportation wise.

I can only hope that car wise....things go well too.

Guess we'll see. :)

Until you next read these words;

I'll be watching the leaves.

Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi