The Day the Prius Died

Monday I had my annual appointment with Dr. Skin. Being on immunosuppressants has its negatives, one of which is a greatly increased chance of skin cancer. Along with accumulating a Dr. Liver and a Dr. Transplant and a Dr. Heart, my portfolio now also includes a Dr. Skin. Dr. Skin operates out of Big City Hospital where I had the transplant done. This is convenient because she has access to my rather massive files, thereby relieving me of having to run through my whole damned medical history each time I go. This is inconvenient in that I actually have to go downtown to Big City Hospital for the opportunity to strip in front of strangers while they investigate various parts of my anatomy for suspicious lesions. The ignominy ….

The doctor's appointment went well. I got there at 8:30 for a 9:10 appointment. They not only took me immediately, but they kicked somebody else out of the examination room and bumped me ahead of them. I should have known then and there that I had used up all my good fortune for the remainder of the year (possibly for the remainder of the decade).

I returned to my car about 9:15, well-pleased with the way events were going. I figured I could be at work shortly after ten, well ahead of the "no later than noon" that I had originally forecast. We’d had near-record-breaking heat the past weekend, and Monday was shaping up to be more of the same. The parking garage was already hot. Driving to Philly I had watched my temperature gauge go from 79 to 94 degrees, and it was without doubt hotter than that in the garage at that point.

I turned on my car. Immediately I got a message on the screen that "Outside temperature is above 100 degrees." Well, duh. I'd never seen the error message before, but it didn't worry me at all. After all, I've driven this car all around the Mojave in August, and it never even whimpered. I started down the parking garage ramp. The dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. Heck, there were message codes on the screen that weren't even in the user's manual. I figured that maybe it was a good idea to find a place to pull over and let the car cool down a bit.

It may have been a good idea, but finding a quick place to pull over in center city is like finding diamonds in a Philthydelphia gutter. They might be there, but nobody's ever heard of them. The line of traffic I was committed to carried me over the South Street Bridge over the Expressway. By this time my little Prius is starting to hesitate. It would run fine for one minute, and then lose power the next. Losing power in my car on the South Street Bridge would have ensured that I'd be an item on the all-news all-the-time radio station’s traffic report for several hours. I stuck the car in neutral and let it glide down the last half of the bridge. Ahead South Street loomed, its sides an endless, unbroken string of parked cars. I saw my chance in the form of a right hand turn at the very end of the South Street Bridge and took it. Too late I realized that it was a one-way street. One-way the wrong way, I should add. As I went around the turn I saw another smaller street coming in alongside the bridge. I figured it was a service road, and took it. At least I wouldn't be blocking traffic there.

That's how I discovered Expressway Avenue. It's a little street lined with gated parking lots and empty buildings. And yes, even here in the middle of bloody nowhere, there were cars parked everywhere. I continued to drive, and in two blocks I used up any remaining luck I'll ever have in my life. I not only found a parking space, but it was a legal parking space and I had enough momentum to make a U-turn and pull into it with a minimum of effort. I turned the key to “off”, and the temperature inside the car immediately shot up to just below the point of molten steel.

I still wasn't convinced that this wasn't a situation where I couldn't just let the car cool down a bit and then be able to drive it home. The neighborhood didn't look great, so I sat with the windows up and doors locked. For ten minutes I stayed that way, until I couldn't stand the heat anymore. I turned the car back on. All the Christmas ornaments on the screen came back. I figured it was time to cry "uncle" and call Triple-A. (I just joined two weeks ago because of a traumatic incident with the 12V battery that is no longer worth relating because this current failure I’m writing about is far juicier.) I put the car into reverse, trying to tuck it in a little closer to the curb, and backed up a bit. Then I threw it into forward. The car wouldn't move. I threw it back into reverse and moved a couple of inches. I tried forward again. Nothing. Zilch. Nadda. I did the only thing I could do. I turned the car off again and said something that can’t be repeated within the earshot of anyone under the age of 21.

Then the unbelievable happened. A cop showed up when he was actually needed. As I sat in the car debating what to do next a police car drove past me and pulled into a garage about two blocks behind where I was parked. I grabbed everything of value I had in the car and dumped in a duffle that I just happened to have with me. Throwing the duffle over my shoulder, I trudged up the sidewalk in that direction, thinking the cop might be able to tell me where I could hole up safely in that neighborhood while I waited for AAA to arrive. What I found when I got to where the cop turned in was an office of the School Police for the District of Philadelphia. I never even heard of School Police before. That didn't stop me from walking in.

From the time I got out of the parking garage to the time I entered the police station about twenty minutes had elapsed. If I had realized that over seven hours remained to this ordeal I might have simplified things and just asked one of the cops to come out and shoot my Prius. Instead I walked into their cluttered, closet sized office and explained my dilemma. They were not only kind enough to let me use their phone to call Triple-A, but then they let me hang out in their postage-stamp sized waiting area.

I called AAA using the contact number on my card. They explained that I’d have to negotiate through the Philadelphia office and patched me through. The person who picked up the phone spoke broken English. After a five minute attempt to explain my need for a tow truck, I gave up and called again. In all, I called five times. The fifth time yielded a representative who spoke English. I gave her my street address, and she said she knew right where I was and would arrange for a tow truck.

I made myself at home as perhaps a dozen cops came in and out through the office. Philthydelphia’s schools were in summer school session, and a call came in that the school district would be closing at 11:00 because the schools were not outfitted with air-conditioning. The woman behind the desk informed me with a shake of her head that summer school only lasted nineteen days, which was hardly enough time to teach someone who had failed a course anything of importance. Losing this time wasn’t going to help any.

I spent the time bonding with the Officer Joann. She’d had gall bladder cancer some years back, which was successfully operated on. When I got my liver transplant I lost my gall bladder. Gall bladders don’t get to come along for the ride during transplants. Both of us being without gall bladders gave us more than adequate bonding material. This was a good thing, because we had more than adequate time to bond.

Triple-A said they'd show up no later than 11:00. They were about an hour and fifteen minutes later than that. Keep in mind that I have neither eaten nor gone to the bathroom in this time. Officer Joann did offer me some of her Lean Cuisine, but those things barely have enough for one person. Splitting it into two halves would have only left two people starving. I thanked her for her offer, and then told her I was going outside to make sure that I’d removed everything I needed from the car. That way she could eat in peace, guilt free, and I could salvage my reputation by finding something else to do other than sit there with saliva dribbling down my chin.

Thus it was that I was by my car when my cell phone rang. Apparently the English speaking AAA representative who knew exactly where I was didn’t have a clue where I was. She had directed my flatbed to an entirely different section of the city. The driver of aforementioned flatbed was calling to try and pinpoint where I could have possibly hidden in the residential district he was circling like a vulture looking for something dead. I explained that there were no residences anywhere within view of where I was, but that the old abandoned Dead President Vocation Training Center was directly across the street from where my car gasped its last, and that there was an intersection with Old Dead Queen Avenue about two blocks away. Fortunately the flatbed driver knew exactly where I was and promised to arrive within half an hour.

Meanwhile, I discovered a cache of about twenty Bookcrossing books in the trunk of the Prius. I’d been waiting to release at a local coffee house. It seemed fitting that I release them at the Police Station instead, as a sort-of thank-you for their hospitality. Unfortunately most of the books were of the bodice-ripping romance variety, abandoned in the basement of the condo I purchased from my sister. (I have literally hundreds of books down there that I’m in the process of dumping on an unsuspecting public, but that is yet another story for another time.) I gathered up said books and made my final trek back to the Police Station, thanking them for everything and apologizing that I didn’t have the best selection of books with me. Officer Joann seemed pleased enough with the selection, and I promised to return with some better quality books in the near future.

Triple A showed up with a flatbed. The driver was a certified mechanic, and whipped out his license to prove it. He was convinced that the Prius was probably fine by this point, since it had been resting for several hours. He spent half an hour working on it. The Prius remained not fine.
The driver then talked me into letting him tow it to his repair shop so that he can reset the computer. He was still sure there was nothing wrong with the car. This option being far cheaper than towing it seventeen miles to my dealer, I agreed, and we set out for parts of North Philthy that I had never previously known existed.

I sat at his shop for another two-and-a-half hours while the mechanics dickered with my car. The net result of above-mentioned dickering was that every error message the car is capable of producing kicked out from the computer, and the computer wouldn't reset itself. They couldn't fix it on the spot, but offered to work on it for me. I declined. My gut feeling was that something was wrong with the computer, which would still be covered under warranty. Realizing that I should have just had it towed to my dealer to begin with, I belatedly tell them that I want the car towed there for the work to be done. The little cash-saving maneuver of letting the local shop reset my computer has cost me $120 in towing and service charges, and three hours of time.

I then had to negotiate with AAA for a second tow. Everything seemed to be in order. My car was hoisted back onto the flatbed, and I was directed to climb into the cab of the truck. As we were preparing to set off, the nice kid from the service desk who’d been keeping me company ran out to catch me. Triple A was on the phone. Apparently they had no record of my calling to get the second tow. I had to get back out of the truck and renegotiate. I argue. Then the kid got back on the phone and argued. He'd witnessed me making the phone call. After we got off the phone, things were still unresolved. The kid behind the desk told me to go ahead, that he'd personally OK the tow. At this point I figured I'll deal with any fall-out later. I got back into the truck. I still have no idea how/if that got resolved.

Unlike my first driver (who was a nice South Philly native with eight kids, four of whom were in college), the new guy was a 450 pound bigot with a massive head cold. I anticipate showing symptoms by some time this weekend. The less said about that leg of my adventure, the better.
I arrived at my dealer’s at about 5:00. They regretted but couldn’t look at my car until Thursday at the earliest, with no promises. I got a rental and returned home about six o’clock Monday night.

I left out the parts about the cops running out of coffee and donuts at the station, the maniacal Pepsi machine in the auto repair place that bounced my diet Pepsi all over the place causing it to explode upon opening, the junk yard dog at the repair station that I gave a physical exam to while I waited because the owner thought it was sick, and the drive into Norristown with the aforementioned bigoted tow truck driver who regaled me with unrepeatable stories while snorking up the snot in his nose. If you stuck with the story this long, I imagine you’re thanking me. If you gave up before now then this tardy bit of succinctness makes no difference.

Coming to work looked pretty good Tuesday. Returning home Tuesday night was another matter. That’s when the Storm hit, killing power to about 360,000 homes in the area, including mine. But tales of rental cars with weird shifts, the white collar crime of stealing dry ice, and driving through devastation to reclaim my Prius are whole ‘nother stories for whole ‘nuther times.