Car Trouble
Today I was late to work, hours late to work, because I couldn’t get my car started. Minutes before I had driven my two year old to daycare and then my five year old to his bus stop but as soon as the bus came and I ran back to my car to try to get to work only five minutes late instead of my usual ten, it wouldn’t start.
One AAA battery guy, one tow truck driver, one mocha frappaccino, and two hours at Car Toys later, it turned out to be the stupid fucking alarm system on my car. I have had nothing but problems with this alarm system, the worst of which was an event at Urgent Care one day about a year ago when I stood in the pouring rain with my very sick boys trying endlessly to disarm my alarm with no luck. After a $50 cab ride to home and back, the system caved under the weight of my swearing and tears and once I had control again I shut off the alarm forever (I tried to actually rip it out of my car but it proved stronger than I).
Much to my surprise and consternation, a couple days ago the alarm system decided to turn itself back on and commenced locking my car at unexpected times and arming and disarming itself at random intervals. And then this morning it decided to disable my starter (to prevent me from stealing my car) without actually arming the system (which meant I couldn’t disarm it and start my car). I thought it was my battery (since a dead battery and disabled starter give similar responses) but the battery guy said no (and did not sell me the battery I was more than willing to buy on the spot) and the tow truck guy confirmed it was not my starter (which was good since I had had my starter replaced about six months ago) and managed to get it started so that I could drive to Car Toys to have the finicky alarm system checked out (with dire warning to NOT turn off my car). The Car Toys guy insisted that it couldn’t possibly be my cheap aftermarket alarm system that was causing the problem (WRONG! Stupid preppy too-much-hair-gel earring boy!) but condescended to do my bidding anyway, and two hours later I was on my way to work, car starting on demand, wiry spider of the alarm system remains perched on the passenger seat next to me.
Unfortunately I don’t think that my boss believes me. This is the…third? time I’ve had car trouble in the past month or so and I think the excuse is wearing a little thin. If I could come up with a way to casually drag in the wiry carcass of the alarm system in order to prove my story, I’d do it.