September 17, 1998
Dear Everyone:
It all began Tuesday morning, when “Jeannie’s” car
began to make funny squeaking noises on their way to the office.
This soon changed from funny squeaking noises to alarming
squeaking noises. To the
point that “Jeannie” pulled off the road to look under the car and see
if her muffler was falling off, or something.
She debated the relative merits of turning back
towards home or continuing on to the office with increasingly alarming
squeaking noises accompanying her all the way.
There was work at the office, which would pay money.
She might need this money to find out what was wrong with the car
and get it fixed. “Jeannie”,
car, and alarming squeaking noises proceeded to the office where,
immediately upon arrival, she called me at work to announce that there
was something drastically wrong with the car and she
had to be in Danville at
11:00 the next morning.
Translation:
Drop everything and figure out a way to help her out of a jam.
Her plan was to take the car to the dealership
(after the work at the office was completed), get their shuttle to take
her to the BART station, take BART to
Concord and catch a cab home.
I asked her if she meant the Walnut Creek dealership?
Well, yes, of course.
Ever since we’d lived in Walnut Creek, where it was about a ten
minute walk from the dealer to the apartment, she’d been taking her car
to Walnut Creek. I pointed
out to her that the Concord dealer was
less than a block from her
office and suggested that this might be a better course of action just
this once. Find out if they
can take the car in and call me back.
She eventually called me from home to say that they
could, indeed, take a look at the car on Wednesday.
“Jeannie’s” plan: I
drive to Concord to collect her and bring her back to San Ramon with me,
where she would spend the night in the second bedroom.
The next morning, she could drop me off in “Livermore”, then use
my car to get to her deposition in Danville.
So I left work early (which was OK since I’d
started early that day) and drove up to Concord.
There I discovered that “Jeannie” had decided that, as long as
she was going to be at my place Wednesday morning, she might as well
bring two large loads of laundry to wash.
Back down to my place.
The next morning, I got up pretty much as usual
(hitting the snooze button every seven minutes until it was absolutely
necessary to drag myself out of bed).
I didn’t wake “Jeannie” until I was actually ready to leave for
work. She got up, pulling on
jeans and borrowing a clean shirt since everything she had was in the
laundry baskets. Putting her
shoes on, she remarked that it reminded her of going berry picking when
we were kids. No one cared
what you looked like anyway.
I decided not to mention her hair, which was sticking out in all
directions from sleeping on it.
We proceeded on my usual route to work, which
includes a small aside to stop at the
bagel shop.
I generously bought “Jeannie” a bagel and a latte along with my
usual “one plain, to go”.
Coming back to the car, “Jeannie” finally caught her reflection in the
window.
“My hair!!!”
“Don’t worry,” I told her.
“If you ever go into that shop again, they’ll never recognize
you.”
It turned out that the alarming squeaking noises
were the result of completely worn away
brake pads.
We can all be grateful that “Jeannie” found out because of the
noise and not because of suddenly slamming into something when the
brakes failed.
At the end of another long day, including several
round trips between San Ramon and Concord, “Jeannie’s” back at home,
with her clean laundry, and I have my car back again.
And that’s about all I have time for this week.
Love, as always,
Pete
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