Our Memorial Day weekend brought us to Virginia, with not-quite-last minute plans to see a Steel Wheels concert and spend time with some good friends we’ve moved away from (and who, in turn, moved even farther away).
The concert was held at the Blue Ridge Music Center, an outdoor venue, with a cautious eye on threatening weather. The opening band was a trio of strings-playing sisters, who certainly had talent but who were an interesting choice for the performance. Afterwards the Steel Wheels came on. I will not gush, but will say only this: I love their music, and I superlove-times-a-million their live shows, largely because of the sheer joy they so obviously have in performing.
From time to time, the performance was interrupted for announcements from a Parks Service employee concerning the weather. First, they had their eye on a storm front moving in our direction. Then, they announced that the storm would miss us, giving us only a little rain. Then, they announced that a new system had cropped up and was bearing down on us, and gave the band a 20 minute warning.
It did indeed start to rain, but nobody cared. Alas, though, the coming lightning forced them to cut the show short. Disappointing in that we didn’t see everything we had traveled and paid for, but I feel that with all the joy I got from the concert as it was, the enjoyment lost from its shortening was only marginal. Still, this required of us the ability to be flexible and resilient in the face of things not quite going as planned.
The next day, we elected to take our car–a much-loved Subaru Outback, purchased only a year ago–in a carefully planned outing, to drop M off at a speaking engagement while the rest of us went into the woods to play with guns. Just a few minutes on the road, the dashboard lit up like the cockpit of a crashing fighter jet. The check engine light came on and the transmission oil temp light began flashing. Additional indicators alerted us that to prevent further possible damage, the traction control, electronic parking brake, and cruise control systems had been disabled. M ran a diagnostic and we received an error code that appeared related to a valve something-or-other in the transmission.
This was Sunday. On Memorial Day weekend. With plans to drive home Tuesday morning.
Monday we limped the car to a Firestone service center, where a mechanic re-ran the diagnostic and provided us with a printout saying there was a 14:13 chance we’d need a new transmission. The slightly lesser chance was that only the valvemajig would need to be replaced. But, they don’t do transmissions. Could anywhere that does be open today? No.
Today (Tuesday–formerly known as drive home day) we went to see Glen, a good old boy Appalachian mechanic slash Duck Dynasty extra, sporting matted reddish hair, a mostly-white beard that grew down to his solar plexus, and hands blackened from transmission work. Glen ran another diagnostic and told us that we either needed a new transmission (probably $6,000) or a new valvemagummy. Knowing our predicament of being stuck in Virginia, he didn’t even try for our business–he said he was backed up for about a week and if we hired him he’d just take it to Subaru, so he suggested we cut him out and do that ourselves. But he did caution that we should suggest that we did not need a new transmission, to keep them from trying to sell us one. And he said if they did want us to get a new transmission, to bring it back to him for a second opinion or to try to find a used one.
On to Subaru, where Eric’s first suggestion was that we just try to make it home and get it worked on there. This put me at ease–it told me he wasn’t going to try to sell me on something I didn’t need. I asked Eric to go ahead and take a look to confirm what the issue was, and on the way back to our temporary home I decided the following:
If the problem was with the valverhicky, and the repair time was within reason, we’d have it fixed rather than risk further damage to the transmission. But if he said we needed a new transmission, we’d cross ourselves, burn some sage, and try to make it home. If we need a new transmission anyway, who cares if we damage it further?
Eric called me within a couple hours with news that it was just the valveadoodle. Repair cost: $1700, plus another $110 to overnight the part so we could get on the road at least by Thursday.
Our hosts are now stuck with us for two extra days (and offered to pay for the resulting food needs!). I had to put in for additional time off work since I can’t get back. And faced with a large repair expense not currently allowed for in our exhausted emergency fund, we are retooling our planned summer vacation into a staycation. (And B and I are both looking to pick up extra side work to raise the money.)
There are things I do not do well. Decision making, in certain contexts, is very difficult. But when bad things happen and there’s no way to undo them, then it becomes important to be resilient and flexible.
I’m aware of the degree to which I am privileged here–we have a place to stay, we have jobs we can miss without losing them, and while this is a painful financial hit that is going to wipe us out for a while, it won’t break us. I’m grateful for all that. I’m also grateful that we can face forced changes in plans–from a concert cut short to a major car repair stranding us–and adapt. I’ve been conscious about trying to build that kind of resiliency. This week, I’ve seen its importance.
This post written Tuesday, 5/30/2017. It is being posted on a delay because I consider it unwise to announce on the internet that I am out of town.
