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Well, this week I've finally got a funny car story; although it did start out as a bad problem. We finally had some snow the other night (we've been spoiled up here with quite warm weather). When Jodi got home from work (about midnight), I watched from the house as she walked around the car staring at it in an odd way. After bundling up, I went outside to find out what was the matter and quickly realized that the car was sitting differently. On further examination, we both realized that Jodi had driven home in the snow on a flat tire. Well, I wasn't about to change it in the middle of the night so I waited till morning to do something with the car. As I was turning the lug nuts (to take off the shredded tire and put on that silly doughnut), the car started rocking slightly. I decided to put on the parking brake before I went any further. Although the ground was snowy and my knees were freezing, changing the tire was a breeze. I threw the old tire in the trunk and went back inside to get warm. Several hours later, I wished Jodi well and sent her on her way to work - or so I thought! She quickly came back inside, in tears, exclaiming the car wouldn't move and there was something terribly wrong. She was certain that her drive, although only a short one, on the flat had seriously damaged something on the car. We made other arrangements and finally got Jodi off to work and a ride to get home.
When my friend Jim (who sold me this car in the first place) heard of our predicament, he stopped by that evening to see if he could help. After asking me what I thought the problem was, he had one quick question - by chance, was the parking brake on? DUH! It's been twenty years since I had an automatic, and I hadn't actually gotten in the car to put the parking brake on. I had simply opened the door, pushed the brake with my hand, and then gone back to changing the tire. So Jim and I went outside, climbed in the car, took off the parking brake and drove around the block. Sure enough, everything was fine! :)
Lucky for me that Jodi didn't think of this solution (or notice that red break light on the dash) or I'd had to find some excuse (old age, dementia, short-term memory loss) to cover my butt for not realizing what the problem was. I sure hope that all the car problems this year are as easy to fix! LOL
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