“On The Sunny Side of the Street”

Okay, so we’re on our way. This is it! This is really happening! All annoying occurrences aside, this is pretty exciting. We’ve never done anything like this before; it will be just the two of us and our kids/cats. If only positive thoughts determined more than a state of mind.


We were inside the horrible, large truck with the surprisingly small cab, circling around the cul-de-sac. (Perhaps we should give the truck a name. After all, it was large enough to have its own gravitational pull with the strength of Uranus. Err, maybe Neptune. How about Big Bertha. Yeah, okay.) We were inside Big Bertha trying to retain our excitement and allow the events of the previous day and the stressful morning wash off of us. Jack Burton and Mau Yin were in their cage between us on the bench seat. They were rubbing their faces hard against the cage and meowing repeatedly.


Side Note: If you’ve never heard me tell stories of traveling with our kids, you are missing out on cat-sized drama, grossness, and more grossness. Jack, our fat man, is more of a drama queen than his sister, Mau Yin. He gets very upset when traveling. In the past, it would start off innocent enough. He would meow over and over again. Then his volume would raise and the timbre in his voice would lower. Pretty soon, he’d start panting. Then, the grossness starts: Regurgitation. You know how if you’re around someone who gets sick you have to coax your stomach into not following? You might ask, “Is it still bad watching an animal do it?” Your answer: Yep, it’s still very uncomfortable watching a cat do it. Even worse, I think, is when he would get sick the other way. ::sigh:: But I digress.


This trip, I was terrified how the kids would take it. After all, 24 hours of driving is pushing it for a person, let alone an animal that has no idea why you’re putting them through that kind of torture. I had asked my cousin who is a vet for sedative recommendations. I had experienced giving them liquid medicine before (and might still have the scars to prove it), so I made sure to mention no liquids. My dream scenario would be a shot. No luck. She mentioned an over-the-counter pill for people that could be cut up for a cat depending on size. I thought, okay, I can probably pill them. Ha. Ha-ha. HahahaHAHahaHHahahaha. That’s what I get for thinking. We tried. I tried alone. I asked Christopher to help trying. I held their mouth closed, waited for them to swallow and everything. One of them pretended to swallow it, but must have cheeked it instead. (Must have been watching One Flew Over the Coo Coo’s Nest or Girl, Interrupted or something.) The other swallowed it and then waited just long enough to get away from me and threw it up. Well, what could I do? I was doing this for their own good! Fine, they, and we, would have to deal.


Surprisingly enough, I have no gross details about the 24 hour trip. I was so surprised. The truck was SO loud. It was shaking and vibrating and uncomfortable. I thought, since Jack gets sick in cars, there is NO WAY he won’t sick it up in this bouncing, loud, sound sphere. Kids do the darndest things. After only 15 minutes or so, I set them free, unable to watch them be upset and abuse themselves because they were trapped in the cage. They walked around, sniffing at everything in the cab of Big Bertha. They found their happy place under the bench seat. We had their litter box accessible, they were free and could get to us if needed or wanted, so I guess they were happy. Catastrophe diverted.


A few hours later, we made it into Austin. First stop, to see Todd, Christopher’s dad, up North at his office. This gave all of us a little break from the vibrating cab. It gave Big Bertha a break from, well, doing its job. It seemed to be having a rough time. Had we left on time from Houston, this stop up North in Austin would have made sense. When we reached Todd’s office and Christopher was talking to him, though, we found out that he was going out to Anne’s place of work (Christopher’s mom) down South about 30 minutes later. … Too bad we didn’t know, or we could have gone directly to Anne’s and saved a few stalled moments.


Time Check: We are now at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Traffic is picking-up, and we’ve got to get Bertha onto the devil of a road, I-35.


Christopher climbs back up to the driver’s side, and turns the engine over. Surprise! We have a lovely check engine light pop on that wasn’t there initially. It’s a pretty color and all, but it’s not something that goes with our plans. We already had a shaking problem with Bertha, but it got worse. The problems were intensified when we tried to get to the highway around some construction, up a hill. “Big mistake,” rumbled Bertha. Our speed dropped, and Christopher could hardly get it to go 30-45. We pulled over, Christopher resets the light, and we push through. We make it to I-35 and set off down to Anne’s work. I-35 is a glorified parking lot, but what could we do? We inched forward the rest of the way.


Left turns can be scary, but in Bertha, even right turns could make you hold your breath. I’m not sure how Christopher did it, but he got us onto the small road next to the Faith Child Development Center. The Center is a pretty neat place to visit because there are always a lot of cute kids around doing kid things. One little boy waved at me a few times and then showed me a crayon he was holding before chunking it to the ground, breaking it. Cute, right? I think he was showing off his strength. I was impressed. We met a few of Anne’s employees and then made our way to her office. We had a nice visit, talking about anticipations and how they support us with these big changes. Before we knew it, almost an hour had passed by, and Todd found his way to us. Whoops. What time is it? Guess we better get going. One more hug and goodbye, and we were on our way.


Unfortunately, by the time we left the Center, it was prime time rush-hour time! Goody. No worries, though. We did, after all, purchase a brand spanking new GPS device with live traffic updates. As we headed out, the computer generated woman’s voice instructed us to take a right. We pass the street. I do a kind of head turn, looking at our instructed path. No worries, maybe Christopher just didn’t hear it. “Recalculating… Take a right in 500 feet.” Doo-ta-doo. Yeah, no. Another turn of the head as the street crept past our window. I mean, we were in super slow mo because of all the traffic. It’s not like it would have been a slam on the breaks and emergency turn type of situation. So, okay, probably he heard that one. “Recalculating.” At this point, I figure, I’ll emphasize what the CGW (computer generated woman) is saying. “In 400 feet, take a right at Smith street.”


“So, babe, do you want to do that? You know, take a right?”
He looked at me, confused. “But, we’re supposed to go this way.” …
Okay. Hmm. “Babe. Is there some reason you’re not listening to the GPS?”
“Well, ‘cause I think we’re supposed to go this way.”
“But didn’t we buy the GPS for directions? For help? Especially when there’s traffic?”
“Yeah…”
“Is there any reason we shouldn’t believe her? Has she guided us wrong yet?”
“No…”
“So, maybe we can give her the benefit of the doubt?”
“Yeah, okay, I guess.”
“Recalculating.” Okay, if he didn’t turn at that next street, I woulda smacked him!

He turned to me and asked, “So, should I turn?”

::sigh:: Calm. “Yeah, go ahead. What can it hurt?”


We make the turn and find our way around some traffic. Too bad we did not find our way around engine problems. The check engine light comes back on. We pull over again. He resets it again. We continue on a mile or so before it pops on yet again. This time, we pull over to the side of the road.


I rummage through our paperwork and find the paper marked SOS. I call the 1-800 number and wait, and wait, and wait. Eventually, I am put on with a SOS representative for Eksnep (get it?!). I let him know our location, what has been happening with the truck, where we picked it up, where we are going, et cetera. He suggests we pull over and wait. At this point, we find ourselves in a small town outside of Austin. We see a gas station and a post office. It’s not totally Deliverance up in there or anything, but it’s not my ideal stop over. But, we pull over off of the main road, across from the little post office and give him the street intersection. He asks me for the zip code. Wow. Really? I say, “I don’t know, but I guess I can look it up on my phone and let you know.” I mean, I know he’s on a computer. Come on! We are told it will take 30 minutes to an hour to have a service technician come to check on the engine. Immediately after hanging up with the rep from Penske, the technician called to say someone was on the way already. An hour would be tops; he was only coming from Austin.


There we are, on the side of the street, waiting. I decide I’m going to get upset. A few tears into it, Christopher suggested we make some sandwiches. He headed to the back of the truck, unlocked and threw open the massive truck’s door. Since we had the room, we had a cooler with snacks for the drive in the back. A few minutes later, I sucked it up and walked to the back of Bertha. He had a sandwich made for me. We sat together in the cargo area, what would be the equivalent of a pickup truck’s tailgate, and ate our sandwiches with a couple of sodas, our very own pity ‘tailgate’ party. It was a pretty nice day; I was grateful for that. And actually, it was a lot of fun. Kind of like a picnic break. We were making the best of it. Before long, though, it got dark, and we decided to move our waiting into the cab. It was well past 30 minutes, into the hour, when I called the SOS line again.


I let the representative know that I had already attempted to call the service technician’s number, but there was no answer. He said he would call and check the status and get back to me. He did call back, saying he wasn’t sure why there was a delay, but that it shouldn’t be more than another 15 or 30 minutes. Great. We were sitting in the dark cab, watching a assortment of pickup trucks grumble past us. Every slightly large truck made us sit up, hoping that was the tech. After the mentioned time passed, I called again. We were given another promise that they would be there soon.


Not long after that last call, a tiny little SUV drove past us. We didn’t think anything of it, because it was not a service truck. They turned around and drove back toward us, u-turned one more time, and pulled their tiny SUV to the front of Bertha’s towering front bumper. It was difficult to see because it was so dark, but there appeared to be a small person in his truck. Christopher got out to speak with him, letting him know the situation. He asked Christopher to pop the hood.


Yeah, okay, let me explain something. Large trucks like that don’t have a “pop” option. You unhook locks from either side of the large hood and pry it forward, not up. (Which I saw the first time we pulled over and Christopher pulled the hood forward to check the engine.) Christopher explained this to him, and they unhooked it and pulled it forward. Not a good sign, eh?


During all this, he explained to Christopher that he has worked on trucks like this for 10 years. Hmmm… He attempted to look at the engine. It was a bit of a challenge seeing as how it was after 7 o’clock at night and it was near black outside. Christopher said he had a flashlight and retrieved it. It doesn’t take a veteran of 10 years to know that engines on diesel or any other type of engine don’t glow at night; flashlights are necessary. Mr. Expert checked the fluids by sight. He climbed into the cab and revved the engine. Guess there wasn’t all that much he could do seeing as how he didn’t have his tools with him or his work truck. Oh, and that little person I mentioned was his kid. Professional, huh? Through the course of their conversation, he let Christopher know that the technician who was supposed to come out to us couldn’t make it. He was filling in for him. Nice, and a COMPLETE WASTE OF OUR TIME! He reset the light by revving the engine and turning the car off and on and explained it was a fluke. Nothing was wrong; it was just a faulty sensor. Riiiiiight.


I was irritated that was had to wait 2 and ½ hours for a fluke. That irritation last about 5 minutes or so until the light came BACK on 3 or 4 miles down the road. I called the SOS line again and had to go through the prompts from the beginning because they had closed our case. Yay. I got a different rep and explained everything. He tried to lighten my mood by joking with me. Guess it helped a bit, but it didn’t change the fact that he had no solution. I said I didn’t want to wait another 2 and ½ hours to get someone to come out and do nothing. We had a hotel room waiting for us in Van Horn, Texas, a few hours outside of El Paso. He said I could do whatever I wanted. He understood. He’d send someone if I wanted him to. Hm. He then said that there was a large shop for Penske trucks in El Paso and he could send someone to our hotel in Van Horn if I wanted him to. At that point, I lost cell reception… probably a good thing. I needed a break. We were in the middle of nowhere going up and down hills. If you’ll recall, that means we weren’t getting about 35-45 mph. The trip to Van Horn, already delayed from our useless stop in Post Office City, Texas, normally 10 hours, would take us over 15.


Next time, on California Dreamin’: Bertha sabotages Christopher and Ashley one more time by needing diesel fuel and being too large to fit in a parking lot, Bertha’s partner-in-crime, Poop-Head Small Town Cop gives our heroes a ticket for “stopping, sitting, or parking on a roadway” while Ashley sneaks inside the only open gas station to use the restroom, and they reach their first hotel only a few hours before checkout time.


Check back soon! Same bat time, same bat channel.


*”On the Sunny Side of the Street” written by: McHugh and Fields