No Smoking.....PLEASE.

If you think this is a blog about some thoughtless person smoking in public and blowing smoke at a non-smoker you are not correct. . .

This is about a van that, after $200 in repairs on the brake system, started smoking, stuttering and got nasty fast....on a major road in a town where EVERYBODY is in a hurry and thinks they are more imporant than anybody else.

The van, mine. The smoke...real and acrid and filling the van. I pulled into the turning lane that goes nowhere and stopped the van I thought was on fire and hopped out. Thankfully, I was coming HOME from work and MB was not with me (I drop him off, daddy picks him up) so I did not have to worry about him. So here I am, in the middle of the street, hood up, me wearing a skirt (gasp for those of you who really know me) and I am trying to figure out where the problem is. I pretty much know, because I added transmission fluid the other day when I checked the transmission fluid and it was bone dry....BONE DRY...but apparently I added it to the brake fluid because, though I would like to THINK I am car savvy, I am not. So the brakes were going out and I found out that I need another $800 to fix the damage I did (working on it), but this was not the brakes....nooooooooope. New pads and rotors after the shimmy stop I did on the way to work after dropping MB off that scared me half to death. No...This was transmission, which is REALLY bone dry now because though I though I fed it juice, I surely did not. I had 3/4 bottle of transmission fluid left so I put it in where the brake guy told me it should go (where was he when I needed him ??). Does anybody stop????
please....will somebody stop.....
please.
p l e a s e?????

Sure. A friend of mine from MOPs stops and offers to help, but she's about as mechanically inclinded as I am. She stops as I am trying to find a funnel small enough to put the transmission fluid into the CORRECT resevoir. She is a total blessing....she goes and gets her mechanically inclined husband to come help me.

While she pulls away, a police officer decides to stop (I think he thought we crashed) and asks if he can call me a tow truck or did I think I could get the van off the street...Um...thanks officer, wanna help push?

TOTALLY on the brink of tears, I tell him he needs to give me a quick second b/c I'm trying NOT to burst out crying at this point...wisely, he backed off, told me he would get behind the van and when I thought I could try to move it he would escort me into the parking lot beyond the light I'm broken down at. Gee...thanks.

So I look for a funnel, and necessity being the mother of invention, I improvise and use old Sunday School leader guide to fashion a small tipped funnel and pour in the transmission fluid and hobble my minivan into the parking lot.

Jr. comes and escorts me to the Dollar General across the street so I can get some more transmisison fluid and then recommends I take it to a mechanic in the morning. I get home....tired, stressed and weary in time to make dinner.

So I take the van to the mechanic today (2 days later...too much trauma, now I can talk about it) and he specializes in transmissions...and he tells me THERE IS NOTHING NOTHING wrong with my transmission. what what what??? So we take it out for a spin and all the odd stuff it was doing is gone. ZIP....nada...behaves almost like a van with only 100,000 miles on it, not it's 110,500 miles.

So, my theory, God fixed my van. Thanks! I needed the break. Thanks to Jr. and Tina and all who kept me cool...to officer not-so-helpful for not making me cry or pay for a tow truck...
and to my van, may you ever be a non-smoking vehicle!