Replacement Cars

The trouble with replacement cars is that they are different. All your habits are wrong. Reaching for one thing gets you another. Radio settings are not yours, and so many systems exist for setting radios that you could take an hour to figure it out - if it was worth the bother , or even if you could. Mirrors need adjusting, turning radii are different, the seat needs adjusting and at its best is still different from what your muscles are used to. Trying all this after dark is enough to bring on swearing.

This is especially true when switching from a Korean Hyundai of recent manufacture to a '94 Buick. Even with one of my sons in the car- who drove the Buick all last summer- we couldn't figure out how to turn off the dome light for 5 minutes. He had figured out the radio resets last summer, but has forgotten them in the meantime. Lucky for me, one of them was KNOW, MPR's news station, because his musical tastes... well, let's settle for saying they're not mine.

He was, at least, helpful enough to dig the car out of the snow, chip off enough ice to get a door open and start it, clean out the ashtray and accumulated crap, and ride up with me to the nearest Wal Mart where we could replace wiper blades after 9PM. That was especially helpful because with them as awful as they were, and roads wet and salty as they were, it took two to see the road in the face of oncoming headlights, especially when from a semi. It was good we kept the jug with the remainder of the blue-juice from filling the reservoir in the back of the car, because the lines to the windshield were frozen solid. Nobody's driven the car since October, and what little was left was summer blend. Periodically yesterday I'd get out, pour blue juice over the windshield, and turn on the wipers full bore so I could see again. With brand new wipers, it worked well.

The biggest problem, however, was lack of heat. Or should I just say this car is mostly solar-powered in the heating department these days, and the sun only cooperated for a few hours midday. Back when my mom was driving this thing, after my dad got too blind to drive, it developed a tiny radiator leak. Most of you already know how this part of the story ends, but I'll tell it anyway. Being too cheap to go for an actual fix to the problem, a decision we all agreed with, by the way, considering their age and driving distances, a can of leak stopping stuff was put in the radiator. It worked beautifully, stopping up not only the radiator leak but most of the heater core as well. There's plenty of heat for mild October nights, but not for sub-zero January weather, even with extra layers of clothes and driving tucked in under a double-layer polar fleece lap blanket. The windows, at least, stayed frost-free.

I didn't.

This morning my youngest was still home when I got up. That only means he overslept or is sick. Sick it is, but he left me the keys to use his car today, which is a newer year model of my Hyundai Accent. (He bought it on my advice, having taken a number of them up near or over 400,000 miles.) I know how to tune in my radio stations, where all the signals and gadgets and buttons are, and best of all, that it has great heat!!!!

Now if only I hadn't filled the Buick with $30 gas last night, being unable to face freezing my tush off this morning with no way thaw it out all day.