My car is a junk magnet. Either that or it's possessed!

I've been pretty scarce on the blogging scene of late. I've been checking in on some of my favorite bloggers daily but haven't been posting too much myself. I guess it's been because the weather has been so cold and the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit in front of my computer (no, I don't have a lap top) and suffer the cold. So I curl up in a blanket on the couch and veg out on TV. 


This week though I had car trouble. My car is possessed! If you remember on October 30th I had a little incident where I picked up some duct tape that wrapped itself around my tire, see story here. I called emergency road service and had my car towed and everything and all that was wrong with it was duct tape around the tire!!!


This week on Thursday as I was backing out of my driveway I noticed my tires left a track, but since it had rained a lot all week and rained all that night I figured it was just rain water making the tracks. I thought nothing of it and just went off on my merry little way to work. At about 10am my mom called me at work and wanted to know what was wrong with my car as there was a huge oil spot where I park.


I texted my sister and she immediately texted me back that I was probably losing oil and I needed to leave work early at 3pm so that if my car did break down on the way home I wouldn't be stuck on the freeway in the dark, in the rain waiting for the tow truck. 


I left work at 3pm cause I always do what my sister says. As I walked to my car I noticed that the whole passenger side of my car was smeared with grease/oil from the front bumper to the back door. I called my sister and told her what I found, she told me to check the oil and the water levels first and if necessary add oil and water before I attempted to drive the 20 miles home so I wouldn't blow up my engine. I drove about a mile to warm the engine first, cause somewhere I remember someone telling me that was necessary. 


I then pulled over and popped the hood on my car and opened it up and stared at it's guts and saw lots of little things that looked like the oil dipstick, but I wasn't real sure. I pulled one out and it looked ok. I know my dad always wiped the oil off with a rag and put it back in and looked again, but I didn't have a rag so I decided one look was sufficient. 

Then I pulled out another dipstick looking thing and that looked ok too. I had no idea where you checked the water level so I check the windshield wiper cleaner level and that look good. So I knew that if I did get stuck somewhere at least I could have a clean windshield so that when the paramedics and firemen came to find my frozen dead body they could easily see it through my spotlessly clean windshield :-)


Realizing that I was totally out of my element when it comes to cars and realizing that I do belong to the GM Motor Club I called them and they said they would be more than happy to tow it for me. And sure, they would tow it to my mechanic in Shafter (I work in Bakersfield 20 miles from home). I've said it before and I'll take this opportunity to say it again, GM Motor Club rocks and I love them!


The tow truck guy came, he towed the car to my mechanic in Shafter. My mechanic is Carroll Winters from Winters Automotive and I've never known a nicer, more honest mechanic in my life! He walked around and stuck his finger in the oil and told me it looked more like grease than oil. (Aren't grease and oil the same thing?) He talked to the tow truck driver and they pondered what the problem might be. He told me to just leave the car and he'd take a look at it and let me know the next day what he thought.


My mom was waiting there to give me a ride home. I live two miles from the mechanic. We had just pulled into the driveway and were examining the oil slick in my driveway when my phone rang and it was Mr. Winter on the phone saying, "You know what your car needs?" I took a deep breath and prepared myself for him to tell me I needed a whole new engine or transmission or air compressor or a bog warmer or something like that and said, "What?" He says, "All it needs is a car wash, come get your car there's nothing wrong with it, you just hit something on the road that had oil and you carried it underneath your car."


Oh really? C'mon...even I'm not that gullible. He's just joking right? He's remembering the duct tape incident and just screwing with my head right? So I said, "Really, it's ok? Are you sure?" He says, "Honey, of course I'm sure...I wouldn't let you take it if I wasn't sure." How can you doubt a man that calls you honey?



So my mom and I go back to get my car. She drops me off and my sister gets there and she tells Mr. Winters that my car is possessed! And I believe it is, either that or it's a junk magnet and just likes to pick up crap in the road to freak me out! But the good thing is that even though the whole passenger side is caked up and mucked up with sticky grease...it's not broken, so I'm happy.