hair spray and prayer
Our Van has been giving us lots of troubles lately - it's 2003 Honda Odyssey. We bought it over a year ago with the thought, lets get a good van and minimize our repairs. It cost us way more than I ever dreamed of paying for a vehicle. I hate dealing with vehicles. Some people like it, I don't. When something goes wrong, I cringe. I hate it that they depreciate in value so quickly. Sometimes you get a good one, and other times they are horrible.
We had trouble with the A/C and had it repaired along with the timing belt and water pump. Big bill. The A/C never really worked after that. So we brought it back it. Another bill. Then we drove it to Seattle this past weekend. The A/C quit again. This is getting old.
On our way back to Chilliwack, with the windows down and the kids cranky from the heat, a huge continuous sound starts coming from under the hood. Lights on the dash are blinking, and it starts smelling like the van has internal problems. Never a good smell. It's 11 at night and we pull into a gas station. Being the man of the house I put my head under the hood and start pretending I know what I'm doing. Poking, looking, prodding - doing something cause we are 1 hour from home and I'm leading two services the next day. My mind starts racing, do we get a hotel, do we sleep in the van, do we hitch hike, do I set it on fire ... there isn't a mechanic open, sober or awake at this hour. No clue what to do.
Out of the gas station an older man walks towards me. He has a sweat stained ball cap and is about 6'5" and asks is there anything wrong. So, I told him everything I knew - there is something wrong with the engine. He came over poked, prodded, looked - but I got the sense he knew what he was doing. He asked if I had any hair spray. I was glad to do something so I got Patti's hair spray and handed it to him. At this point I didn't know if hair spray was something that most mechanics use to fix engines. I wanted to ask what it was for, but risked blowing my cover of someone who knew something about mechanics - like most people do.
As he sprayed the hair spray into the engine compartment, the noise got a little less noisy and he said you should be good to go. After seeing the puzzled look on my face, he added the belt was loose and the hair spray made it stick, you should be able to limp home. We shook hands and I asked him what his name was, he said Ralph. I wondered if there angels with the name Ralph.
So we got going and the noise was still very loud - the loud type that cars in the opposite direction are staring at us when they pass by. After about 20 minutes of this the noise just stopped and the van sounded like it didn't have any problems at all. I looked over at Patti and she looked at me and we both asked each other the same question at the same time, where you praying? We both answered yes.
We got home, thanked God for getting us home safely. The next morning, which is Sunday, I went out to start the van, and again a huge noise. So we packed everything up into the Jetta and drove to church. We had a guitar, keyboard, keyboard stand and 5 of us in the Jetta. Levi was in the trunk. James was crying cause he wanted to be in the trunk instead of Levi.
Now, the van is back at the shop. And the mechanic is probably praying in thanks to God for providing him an income yet another day. The mechanic's name is Ralph. I don't think he's an angel. But we'll see.
We had trouble with the A/C and had it repaired along with the timing belt and water pump. Big bill. The A/C never really worked after that. So we brought it back it. Another bill. Then we drove it to Seattle this past weekend. The A/C quit again. This is getting old.
On our way back to Chilliwack, with the windows down and the kids cranky from the heat, a huge continuous sound starts coming from under the hood. Lights on the dash are blinking, and it starts smelling like the van has internal problems. Never a good smell. It's 11 at night and we pull into a gas station. Being the man of the house I put my head under the hood and start pretending I know what I'm doing. Poking, looking, prodding - doing something cause we are 1 hour from home and I'm leading two services the next day. My mind starts racing, do we get a hotel, do we sleep in the van, do we hitch hike, do I set it on fire ... there isn't a mechanic open, sober or awake at this hour. No clue what to do.
Out of the gas station an older man walks towards me. He has a sweat stained ball cap and is about 6'5" and asks is there anything wrong. So, I told him everything I knew - there is something wrong with the engine. He came over poked, prodded, looked - but I got the sense he knew what he was doing. He asked if I had any hair spray. I was glad to do something so I got Patti's hair spray and handed it to him. At this point I didn't know if hair spray was something that most mechanics use to fix engines. I wanted to ask what it was for, but risked blowing my cover of someone who knew something about mechanics - like most people do.
As he sprayed the hair spray into the engine compartment, the noise got a little less noisy and he said you should be good to go. After seeing the puzzled look on my face, he added the belt was loose and the hair spray made it stick, you should be able to limp home. We shook hands and I asked him what his name was, he said Ralph. I wondered if there angels with the name Ralph.
So we got going and the noise was still very loud - the loud type that cars in the opposite direction are staring at us when they pass by. After about 20 minutes of this the noise just stopped and the van sounded like it didn't have any problems at all. I looked over at Patti and she looked at me and we both asked each other the same question at the same time, where you praying? We both answered yes.
We got home, thanked God for getting us home safely. The next morning, which is Sunday, I went out to start the van, and again a huge noise. So we packed everything up into the Jetta and drove to church. We had a guitar, keyboard, keyboard stand and 5 of us in the Jetta. Levi was in the trunk. James was crying cause he wanted to be in the trunk instead of Levi.
Now, the van is back at the shop. And the mechanic is probably praying in thanks to God for providing him an income yet another day. The mechanic's name is Ralph. I don't think he's an angel. But we'll see.
posted by mike vanderkwaak at
9:50 AM
2 Comments:
Good story, Mike, although I'm very sorry to hear about the car trouble. I know exactly how you feel -- I hate car problems too. That's a pretty new car to be having those problems -- any chance any of it is under warranty or recall from Honda?
The Van is now out of the shop and running great. I feel better too. The alternator bracket was broken which created slack in the belt which caused the a/c to not work, the belt to squeal and the pastor to pray more. So, Ralph (mechanic) was a bit angelic in that he charged me only $80 to fix a million dollar headache.
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