Trouble in Here

For over a month my check engine light has been on in my car. Being the responsible adult that I am, I waited until this past Friday to get my car checked out, that is, a mere 9 days before I am to embark on a 600 mile road trip by myself. First, let me just point out that I think that mechanics rank right up there with new car salesmen when it comes to the amount of respect that they give a person of the female persuasion. Second, auto shop waiting rooms smell bad.

I had made an appointment for my car, hoping to avoid the inevitable wait. However, it seemed that the check engine light phenomena was sweeping the Alexandria area that day, and therefore my car had to wait 45 minutes before being seen by a mechanic. Like most auto shops, there was a glass wall between the waiting room and the shop area. My car was located in the first position closest to where I was waiting, so I could see what was going on. The guy hooked the computer up to my car, opened the engine, and mulled around. He went back and forth between checking the engine and the computer hooked up inside the car numerous times for about an hour. At one point, he was scrolling through buttons on the computer thing, and he yelled out "82 miles an hour!"

Eventually, the guy came in and asked me some questions regarding my car, like, "Have you run out of gas recently?", "Did you click the gas cap after refueling?", "How long has the light been on?" Okay, so some of you out there in internet land have had first hand accounts of me and my ability to get the most out of a tank of gas. I recalled that right before the light came on, I had run very low on gas, probably lower than I ever had, but I didn't run out. I had been thinking all this time that this could have been the culprit. I told the mechanic that and he said, "I saw you were going 82 mph when the light came on." I just replied with a "uh....yeah, it was on I-95, it's all good." (Whoever came up with the invention to record the speed at which one was traveling when said check engine light came on should be beaten.) The mechanic then said, "You know you are running low on gas right now too?" Of course I knew, I was planning to get gas on my way home, after all, I would have had to make a left turn to get to the cheap gas station had I gone on the way to the shop. It was on the correct side of the road on the way home, duh.

After two hours of the dreaded waiting room, the mechanic decided he could not find anything wrong with my car. He turned the light off, and drove it around the block a few times (wasting my precious fuel). The shop manager and the mechanic were joking around saying that I must have been going 82 mph so I could get over the hill so I could coast down to the gas station. Yeah, haha. So, I paid and left. They told me that if the light came back on, I could bring it back and they would "dig deeper." Less than 24 hours later, the light returned.

I am going back to the shop this afternoon. I have an appointment. That computer thing better not be in use on another vehicle! Today's song is Trouble in Here by Howie Day.