Tomorrow I have to drive to a small town 40 minutes away to see my GP. Then I drive back to work. After lunch I’m driving 45 minutes in another direction to another small town to take my car in for servicing. Then I drive back to pick up Klara.
I feel like it’s my very own form of Christmas. I love driving to these little towns, taking country roads, alternating between listening to my right-wing podcasters and my Commie Spanish writers, chugging my Bai water or gas station coffee.
It doesn’t get better than driving around in the depths of America.
Clarissa's Blog 
“doesn’t get better than driving around in the depths of America”
If you have a reliable car and a flexible schedule…. yes. Now I’m having flashbacks of driving about 2000 miles in a car that always had to be backed in to parking spaces cause you never knew when you’d need a jump. Or a car whose engine would mysteriously conk out 30 miles from the closest town (it would usually start again after a moment, but….). Or having to cross a lot of Texas and Oklahoma in a terrible heat wave with no AC…
There was also getting stuck in a terrible small town for almost a week waiting for a part that never showed up (eventually it was easier and cheaper to have it towed 50 miles where it was quickly fixed).
Reliable car privilege used to be a thing in the US….
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”There was also getting stuck in a terrible small town for almost a week waiting for a part that never showed up (eventually it was easier and cheaper to have it towed 50 miles where it was quickly fixed).”
Sounds like a plot for a Hallmark movie. Except it always happens over Christmas and ends in a wedding, not towing the car…
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“Sounds like a plot for a Hallmark movie”
Felt more like the plot of a 70s horror movie…. except that would have been over a lot faster.
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I once had my timing belt break while I was coasting through an intersection with my foot on the clutch. Knew exactly what had happened. Came to a rest about 50 feet from a repair shop. Felt like the luckiest person alive because the car was repair-able, and I didn’t have to pay for a tow.
-ethyl
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“coasting through an intersection”
Once in Gville I was riding with a friend who managed to run out of gas in the middle of an intersection… one of the busiest in town and it was the middle of rush hour…. fortunately it was a pretty laid back place then and a couple of helpful people seemed to materialize out of thin air to help us push it outof the way.
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A student I knew back in grad school had car trouble. Tried to start his car (parked in front of his apartment building) and couldn’t. He tried everything, but no luck. Finally, he called a repair shop and had his car towed. It turned out his car run out of gas just as he was pulling into his parking spot. The repair turned into the most expensive tank of gas he ever purchased…
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Remember when I put diesel into my car and it stopped in the middle of a one-lane road? Several nice men got out of their cars and carried it into a parking lot amidst my confused clucking. Nobody even cussed me out, at least not to my face. Everybody was so sweet and caring. I love America.
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And some people here on the blog thought my story was fake because the diesel hose doesn’t fit into a regular car. Like I’m not even Ukrainian, or something.
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I agree, Americans can be very kind. A long time ago I stupidly got myself into a tight spot in a parking lot near a curb and was not able to get my car out. It was very embarrassing. A kind gentleman came out and very patiently navigated me out of the spot. I was very grateful. No one yelled at me or called me stupid, they just helped me. If that happened in my home country someone would probably just video me and post it on the social media for people to laugh at…
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I grew up in an environment where people sped into puddles on purpose to splash the passersby. I’m still deeply grateful to Americans for never doing it. Every time I point this out to my kid. “Look, what a wonderful person. Went to all that trouble to avoid splashing us.” She always says, “But everybody is like that, Mommy.” In her reality, everybody is like that. But I know that the human default is the opposite.
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This is why I get so angry with the unearned privilege line. It jolly well was earned–by people doing the right thing over and over and over again and only maintained by me and mine doing the same. How fast would that “privilege” evaporate if people ceased to earn it?
We’re having the discussion with our kids now. What kind of society do you want to live in? You have to act daily to create that kind of society no matter what anyone else does.
-K
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“Americans can be very kind”
I remember when going across the country with the car that was fussy about starting (not the only one I ever used by any means) I got very good at asking for a jump… you just open the hood, hold the cables with a hopeful look and someone will volunteer pretty quickly….
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Yes! I have been on both sides of that transaction, more than once! These days we have a jump box for this (and so does everyone else) so it is less of a thing.
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Cannot count the number of times my dad arrived at the scene of an accident (minor, but disabled vehicles blocking traffic) or a traffic light that was not working, and traffic in a dreadful mess, and simply… parked on the roadside or nearby lot (I remember waiting in the car), walked out into the road and directed traffic until the cops got there. Just what you do, right?
-ethyl
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Oddly enough, that was in G’ville. I learned all the dumb car things when I lived there, driving a decrepit old car: how to replace a clutch cable, what to do when a belt shreds on the highway, that thing where your key wears out, and you have to finagle it *just* right to get the ignition to turn, how to avoid replacing a leaky oil pan gasket indefinitely (just keep putting oil in!)…
I feel like parents who get their kids *nice* cars are cheating them out of very important automotive learning experiences 😉
-ethyl
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My husband gave me a new used car as a gift and I love it because it’s a gift from him but it’s one of those smart cars that gives me cheerful, condescending comments about the quality of my driving. “Good, smooth acceleration today! Decelerating still needs some work. You can do it!” It’s turning me into a bigger neurotic than I already am.
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there may be a way to turn off those messages. My car has various displays, one of them is “break coaching” giving similar feedback and it is easy to turn it off.
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I was at the dealership today and they turned it off for me. It’s so blissful.
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