Bree's Blog

Rotors, Resolutions, and Child Abuse

Marcio, of Meineke, bears bad news

Bree Barton drives her Toyota Corolla, little suspecting what awaits her on a New Jersey highway and a repair shop.

By Bree Barton

Last night, I discovered a Word document entitled "NYR" on my computer. Curious, I double-clicked. Sure enough, there were my eight New Year's Resolutions for 2008 (I'm a sucker for themes), right where I left them. They included such jewels as "start some kind of regular workout routine" (ha) and "have one book written" (wellll, about that...)

Clearly, my lofty goals for 2008 followed the trajectory of most people's New Year's resolutions: they tanked.

Clearly, my lofty goals for 2008 followed the trajectory of most people's New Year's resolutions: they tanked. They went from resolute to dissolute -- some of them fell apart before I'd even finished singing Auld Lang Syne. By year's end, I was left demoralized, depressed, and exposed for what I truly am: a fraud. Even worse: I'm a fraud without a regular workout routine. O, such sorrow, such shame!

This year, I won't let the same thing happen again. For one thing, I'm simplifying my aspirations. Everyone else is downsizing, so I figured, why not? Maybe, with only three New Year's resolutions to keep track of, I can manage to not be such an abysmal failure.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think my resolutions for 2008 were all wrong. Maybe that's why I didn't keep them -- they weren't what I needed to be focusing on. Last year featured some genuine catastrophes, and they had nothing to do with treadmills and ellipticals (except that whole "Sarah Palin fans at the gym" bit . . . but there's no need to bring that up again).

And so, in honor of the New Year, I'm going to share my resolutions. Perhaps all of you valiant Cape Codders, with your Puritan sense of responsibility and your innate knowledge of oysters, can help hold me accountable.

In 2009, I've gotten smarter. I'm going to take those, er, "less than ideal" situations from last year into account when I make my new lineup. I think I'll call it: Bree's Three.

And so, in honor of the New Year, I'm going to share my resolutions. Perhaps all of you valiant Cape Codders, with your Puritan sense of responsibility and your innate knowledge of oysters, can help hold me accountable.

I'll deliver these in three sections, lest we all get overwhelmed. So, without further ado, here is the first installment of Bree's Three.

New Year's Resolution #1: Find dependable transportation.

This past September, as I made my way back from a writing workshop in New York, my car broke down on the side of the road. Actually, it broke down in the center of a road, when you consider that the damned New Jersey highways are split-laned. So I pulled over to what should have been the shoulder, but what was actually smack dab in the middle of two freaking highways. Luckily, the tow truck came before I was smashed to smithereens.

Naturally, it was 8 p.m. on a Sunday, so not a single car repair shop was open. So we deposited my car at a nearby Meineke and the tow truck driver was kind enough to take me to Newark. From there I was able to swing a train back to New York, and at 10:30 pm on a Sunday, I found myself back on the Brooklyn doorstep of my two friends who thought they'd gotten rid of me.

Now, a word about these friends. These guys are truly cream of the crop: funny, brilliant, thoughtful individuals who subscribe to The New Yorker and play Carcassone when they need to wind down. If you want to discuss Obama's agenda, they'll be totally game. If you want to grab wheat beers and sit around reading Kant and Schopenhauer, they'd be up for it. If you need a date to see Pina Bausch at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, these guys are the ones to call.

If you need someone who can troubleshoot about the inner workings of your Toyota Corolla that just shut down on a highway and is now sitting in a random Meineke in New Jersey, these guys are probably not the ones to call.

But if you need someone who can troubleshoot about the inner workings of your Toyota Corolla that just shut down on a highway and is now sitting in a random Meineke in New Jersey, these guys are probably not the ones to call.

So at my mom's suggestion, I called one of her friends in Texas instead, a self-proclaimed car guy. I described what my car did on the highway, and he said it sounded like it was a battery problem. In fact he was almost sure of it. He asked me if my friends knew how to put in a battery.

I put the phone down for a second. "Either of you guys know how to install a battery?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

They gave me a blank stare. "We could Google it," one of them said.

Well, so much for that.

In light of the situation, my mom's friend suggested that I get a battery myself at Wal-Mart for like 75 bucks and then take it to Meineke and have them put it in. That way, I would come in knowing the problem and the solution, and they'd be less likely to overcharge me. Besides, a battery problem was fixable. There was hope yet.

Of course issue #1 was that there wasn't a single Wal-mart in New York City. My ever politically conscious friends were proud to inform me of that fact. The equation was really quite simple: Wal-mart = SATAN. By necessity, we scratched Wal-Mart from our list of options, my friends went to bed, and at some point that night, I went to sleep in the fetal position on an unyielding leather couch.

The epic journey was about to commence.

I wake up on Monday morning. I prepare myself. I trudge all over Manhattan until, three subway rides, two wrong addresses, and lots of walking later, I find a Hess.

I buy a battery for $95. Wal-mart would have been cheaper. But at least I know I paid that extra twenty bucks so that small children in Thailand didn't lose their appendages on the factory assembly line.

. . . although they probably did anyway.

Now we've made our way to issue #2: an issue of physics. I.e., Mass. Gravity. Long distances. Not a winning combination. The journey I'm about to make with a 15-pound battery in my arms and a purse on my shoulders goes something like this: five blocks to subway station. Stairs. Change to another subway line. More stairs. Walk through a train station to take Path train to Jersey. Lots and lots of stairs. Arrive in Newark. Walk .5 miles to Meineke. Finito.

I made it exactly one block.

Then I see this huge stack of garbage. As luck would have it, it's trash pick-up day in New York City. And there it is, leaning precariously on the side: a baby stroller. This will be my salvation! All hope is not lost.

Now, the thing about this baby stroller is, it's not exactly in the best shape. Let me be frank: this baby stroller looks like the crap's been beaten out of it. It is the most mangled baby stroller I have ever seen. It has three wheels and sharp prongs of metal poking out on all sides. If a real baby were to be riding in this baby stroller, the parents would be arrested on the spot for child abuse.

But, fortunately, there's not a real baby in this stroller. There's a freaking 15-pound battery peeking out of the soiled green fabric.

I can't even begin to describe the looks I garnered from real mothers pushing their real babies in strollers through New York City. They would look toward me, an unspoken bond of solidarity in their tender glance. Then their expression would quickly turn to one of curiosity, and closely on its heels . . . utter and undisguised aversion. And off I went, dodging looks both nasty and perplexed, jollily pushing my 3-wheeled stroller through the city, frequently getting hung up on bumps and curbs, with a big black battery where a baby should have been.

It was even worse in the subways. People looked at me like I was carrying a bomb.

By the time I finally made it to the Meineke in Newark with my baby-battery, I was sweating like a pig. In retrospect, the baby stroller might have actually made things more difficult. It certainly helped that I wasn't carrying the battery the whole way, but every time I came to a staircase, I'd have to jerk the damn stroller all the way down going CLANG CLANG CLANG. Once a policeman watched in utter incredulity as I yanked the clattering stroller down two flights of stairs; when I'd finally reached the bottom, he exclaimed, "Oh my god! I thought you had a baby in there!" Besides, the three-wheel predicament ended up being a huge hassle, and more than once I became lodged with my stroller in the door of the subway while a lot of pissed off New Yorkers gathered behind me and glared.

But I had my battery, and I'd gotten it to Meineke. I handed it over and asked them to put it in.

It was about to get a lot worse. A guy named Marcio came bearing the bad news: it wasn't the battery at all. It was the motor. My car motor had seized.

It was about to get a lot worse. A guy named Marcio came bearing the bad news: it wasn't the battery at all. It was the motor. My car motor had seized. If I bought a new motor, it would cost around $1,000, and that was without labor. Considering my little '96 Corolla with 209,000 miles only blue books at about $1,000-1,200, it just didn't make sense.

The whole situation was my fault, of course. The car had had an oil leak for forever, but for the last year and a half, I had faithfully filled it up with oil every few hundred miles. It was a stop-gap solution until I could afford to have the leak fixed. In fact I had just put oil in it the weekend before, but I guess the leak got worse and it started losing oil faster, unbeknownst to me. The guys at Meineke said it was bone-dry.

They weren't exactly sympathetic to my plight. They were all pissed that my unmovable car (it couldn't even be rolled because the gears were locked up) was blocking up space in their lot for a day. I had to listen to the patronizing head mechanic tell me, "You know, next time you have a car? You need to check the oil."

And it's like, I KNOW, asshole. I'm not that stupid. And it's not like this has been convenient for me, either.

So, after some frenzied grieving, I kissed my darling Toyota goodbye and sold it for scrap metal-for all of a hundred bucks and my license plates as mementos.

Naturally, I had no way to get back to the farm.

For once in my life, fate smiled down upon me:  there was an Enterprise down the street. So I rented a Ford Focus for a day. I was faced with two options: either buy another car immediately (imminently unaffordable), or move to a big city with public transportation (the farm where I was living was so remote, the nearest grocery stores was 8 miles away). Option 2 required filling it up with all my stuff, and moving my life. Like, instantaneously.

That's how I ended up at the Starbucks in Newark on Monday afternoon, frantically searching Craigslist for rooms to rent in NYC or DC, and/or used cars.

I chose option 1. Sitting at Starbucks, I discovered my destiny. I found an old clunker car for $1,000. A 1990 Honda Accord (which made me feel a little better). I met the guy. I bought it. The radio didn't work, the dashboard lights were out, and it was out of alignment. But it was wheels. I had averted certain disaster. The future was bright.

Fast forward to January 6th, 2009. One day ago. The Honda was in the shop for a week. When I picked it up yesterday afternoon, they told me that they couldn't fix the rotors . . . and they couldn't fix the alignment ... in fact they couldn't fix much of anything at all. Why? Because, according to the mechanic, it's so rusted, if they start doing any serious work on it, it'll more or less crack apart.

Sigh. That diagnosis still cost me 318 bucks.

And so, I reiterate: Resolution #1. Find dependable transportation. Or else I might be the one to crack apart.

Bree's car when it still existed.