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Sunday, November 10, 2002
So, my car suffered a pretty major problem on Friday night. Late late at night. On my way home from fellowship, at like 1am in the morning, my car began to overheat. You know something's wrong when your temperature gauge needle is swinging back and forth between normal and hot. Pulling off of the freeway to a gas station near the Oakland airport, I bought some pre-mixed antifreeze/coolant for my radiator, poured it in the reservoir, and went along my way. In an attempt to keep my overheating to a minimum, I drove at the super slow (at least what I consider molasses) speed of 55mph. Being in the slow lane, it was weird for me to watch so many cars pass me by.
Anyway, in my mind, I thought I would just stop by the Walmart (which is open 24 hours in Union City) and pick up some radiator "stop leak" products (because I figured my radiator was leaking). So, close to 2am in the morning, I was chilling at Walmart, picking up the radiator things and shopping for random stuff. The aisles were full of boxes since they do inventory at night, and every once in a while, they would announce things like, "remove the cardboard from aisle 4..sweeping to aisle 4.." over the intercom. After paying for my stuff, I went to my car just to find that lo and behold, it wouldn't start. I'm stuck at Walmart now in the middle of the night..great..
Making sure to turn off all the electronics (radio, heater, lights, etc) in the car, I try to start the car again. The third time, it slowly cranks until the engine turns on. Now I'm just thinking to myself, just let me get home. At first, things seem ok when I start driving. But when I stopped at a stop sign, a fogginess began to envelop my car. Interestingly enough, it was actually from my car. It's never a good sign when your car begins to spew thick, white smoke from it's exhaust. Kinda looked like this (though my car is no Mercedes), but much much thicker smoke (think clouds, people):
So, I blaze home (literally), leaving a smoke screen behind me as I drive (remember the game Spy Hunter? It was like that, but not as cool because I wasn't in control of it.)
When I got home (which fortunately, I did), I began looking up stuff about what might be wrong with my car. Sadly, I found out that my car had a blown head gasket. The head gasket is a seal around the top of a cylinder head to prevent the escape of fluid. The white smoke I saw was the antifreeze/coolant being vaporized as it leaked into the combustion chamber of my engine. My car is now in the shop, getting repaired for a pretty hefty price.. For the time being, I'm driving the Ampire minivan, one of the Chien's cars. Driving a minivan is quite different..it's not too bad, but I still wouldn't buy one myself (Frances ain't a big fan of them either).
4:15 PM Albert
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..a life in DUO