{"id":1255,"date":"2016-09-02T06:05:54","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T13:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2016-08-31T06:40:46","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T13:40:46","slug":"a-comedy-of-errors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2016\/09\/02\/a-comedy-of-errors\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comedy of Errors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend was supposed to be our weekend at Cannon Beach. It didn\u2019t happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

We went out in good order, leaving home at noon on Wednesday. \u00a0By two o\u2019clock, we were southbound on I-5, making good progress, and talking about stopping at the Kelso Burger King for lunch. \u00a0(On our travels that particular fast food joint is designated as the \u201cThrow it out\u201d Burger King. \u00a0Years ago, we stopped there. \u00a0When it was time to leave, I was stuck holding two soda cups filled with ice in a car with no cup holders. \u00a0[This was so long ago that it was pre-cup-holders!] \u201cWhat should I do?\u201d I asked. \u00a0\u201cThrow it out,\u201d Bill said. \u00a0If ever there was a case of faulty pronoun reference, this was the one. \u00a0When he said \u201cit\u201d he meant \u201cice.\u201d \u00a0I thought he meant I should throw out the cups. \u00a0So even though I am opposed to littering and surprised that he would suggest such a thing, I did exactly what he said\u2014I rolled down my window and heaved the cups out onto the shoulder. \u00a0Hence the Throw It Out designation.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But I digress. We had settled the lunch question when, just past milepost 44, the car slowed suddenly and quit. Period. Bill managed to safely ease us over to the shoulder of the road, and there we were, stuck for the next three hours\u2014in 96 degree weather with three lanes of traffic roaring past us only a few feet away. <\/span><\/p>\n

We tackled the problem as best we could. I tried calling AAA and was assured that my call was very important to them but that due to high call volumes it might take a while for them to answer. In the meantime, Bill was trying to call the roadside assistance department of our car insurance provider. He won the phone war and got someone on the line first, but the national call center guy had a hard time locating Kelso on any given map. In addition, we weren\u2019t exactly in Kelso. The only identifying feature we could see on the freeway was a dead Weigh Station a few hundred yards ahead \u00a0Eventually the Highway Patrol informed us that we were just south of Mile Marker 44.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first two towing companies the insurance company called declined to take the job. \u00a0The third one, from Longview, agreed to tow us to the nearest Mercedes-Benz dealership which was in Portland. Unfortunately the driver was out on another job right then and was at least an hour and a half out. \u00a0And so we waited. \u00a0Sitting on the guardrail most of the time and moving from one paltry patch of shade to the next. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s noisy standing next to that much traffic. \u00a0I tried to let the people who were expecting us to arrive know what had happened. \u00a0I called the hotel in Cannon Beach and canceled our reservation. \u00a0I called the Riverplace in Portland and made a reservation. And we kept waiting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually the tow truck arrived. It was a big truck, one with very tall steps. Two years ago, on our Rick Steves Adventure, it was all Bill and I could do to haul ourselves up and onto the bus. A year and a half of walking and working made it possible for us to heave ourselves up into that air-conditioned tow truck with NO PROBLEM!!! That constituted a little bit of good news. The second bit was that the tow truck driver said he\u2019d be glad to drop both our goods and us off at the hotel which, by coincidence, turned out to be a mere block and a half from our hotel. That was the second bit of good news.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting to the dealership was a nail biter. We were driving into Portland during afternoon rush hour, and we knew the service department closed at six. We got there, but too close to closing. We had to drop our car keys off in a key drop along with a description of the problem on an envelope: \u00a0Ran out of power. \u00a0Cranks but won\u2019t start. Plenty of fuel\u20143\/4 of a tank. No overheating. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then we went to the hotel. We\u2019ve stayed at Riverplace for years, but this was the first time we ever arrived in a tow truck. We took our luggage up to the room, and then we went down to the bar and worked our away through the small plates menu: Heirloom tomatoes? \u00a0Definitely. Barbacoa shrimp? \u00a0Yup. Pork Belly? \u00a0Sounds good. Crab salad toast? \u00a0Yes, please. Cod fritters? \u00a0We\u2019ll have some of those, too. I believe it\u2019s called stress eating.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next morning we got up. I walked 10,000 steps in 2000 step laps around Riverplace. At eleven our \u201cService Adviser\u201d called to advise us that we needed a new fuel pump. It was coming from California and would be there the next day. We extended our Riverplace stay for another day and waited and worried. Because by now it was Thursday afternoon. What if they weren\u2019t able to finish the repairs on Friday when we had another whole week of travel lined out starting on Monday?<\/span><\/p>\n

So Friday came. I got up. Walked 10,000 steps. We went to see our \u201cService Adviser.\u201d He advised us that the part was in but it was noon and all his technicians were having lunch. We went back to the hotel, extended our stay until four PM, and worried some more.<\/span><\/p>\n

About 2:30 our \u201cService Adviser\u201d called to say that we needed a \u201csending unit\u201d and the closest one of those was in California. I was despairing when he went on to say, that they were in the process of \u201cbuttoning us up\u201d so we could get back home.\u201d Huh? \u00a0What? \u00a0We extended our stay to 6 PM.<\/span><\/p>\n

So we took our block and a half walk\u2014800 steps give or take\u2014where our “Service Adviser\u201d advised us that what was really broken was the gas gauge\u2014the sending unit of the gas gauge. The sending unit send we still had three quarters of a tank of gas when the tank was really bone dry. We didn\u2019t need a new fuel pump\u2014we needed gas.<\/span><\/p>\n

So they filled it. They charged us for the gas and a hundred bucks for the technician taking the car apart to get at the fuel pump and for putting it back together. We left the hotel about 5:30. They were as glad to see us leave as we were to go. The sending unit will be replaced later\u2014sometime in November, most likely. Taking the hotel bill into consideration, it was probably the most expensive tank of gas ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

But here we are. We made it through. We can already laugh about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is it my mother always used to say? Oh, yes. \u00a0I remember. \u201cIt\u2019s a great life if you don\u2019t weaken.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend was supposed to be our weekend at Cannon Beach. It didn\u2019t happen. We went out in good order, leaving home at noon on Wednesday. \u00a0By two o\u2019clock, we were southbound on I-5, making good progress, and talking about stopping at the Kelso Burger King for lunch. \u00a0(On our travels that particular fast food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traveling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-kf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1257,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions\/1257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}