Got in my car and turned on the engine. Hmmmm....the car won't start. Tried cranking it a couple of times--nothing happened. The car started but it won't crank all the way for the engine to start. Saw my neighbor who's about to leave so I walked towards him and asked for help. After examining the car briefly, we both realized that it wasn't the battery that was the problem.
Suffice to say, at that moment, I realized that I was having a car issue but I must get to work. My neighbor's diagnosis was the fuel injector's malfunction. Whatever the case, I must get to work that morning. So there I was, standing in front of my house thinking of a way to get to work. Luckily, the assistant store manager lives close to me and she was able to pick me up.
Granted that my problem was solve as far as getting to work that morning, the car issue lingered in my head all day while I was at work. I thought to myself..."oh my...here we go again, just when I thought things are going smoothly, something has to happen to derailed my routine and throw me off balance"....
Well of course, some spiritual philosopher's may justify and preach that obstacles like this keeps us humble...It helps us realize that no human-kind is superior enough to dodge most daily life issues such as this..We can all be inconvenience at anytime or anywhere.
Be that as it may...dealing with the car issues is not something that keeps me humble. True that it does put some sense of appreciation back into your mind and attitude about vehicle in general, I don't see where it can help me cultivate humbleness. You have to explain this to me conspicuously before I'll agree to such theory bla, bla, bla...LOL
I am a self proclaimed independent person on most things but when it comes to unfamiliar/abstruse issues (particularly automotive problems), I am not enitrely equiped to tackle it all by myself...so I am going to bow out. I don't have the skills nor the talent for a mechanical troubleshooting.
It was time to get some help. After all, there's only so much that I can do. My friend's husband is a mechanic... So I thought it would be an easy solutions. I'll just ask him to look at the fuel injector and things should be working in no time.
Much to my dismay, after a tremendous amount of effort from his side figuring out what's going on and looking at the fuel injector, he couldn't figure out the problem either. So there I was utterly mystified, extremely disappointed and thinking about my next plan....
Decided to give it a rest so that I can presume on dealing with it the following day. Nothing is going to get accomplish that night--NOT my car. But I can at least work on restoring my peace of mine back that can be bestowed by not thinking about car failure..Yes..peace of mind is what I needed to deal with my white Honda Civic the following day.
Ironically, timing was very much in sync with me. My PTO from work was the following day...My only option now is to take it to the dealer/shop to have it look at.
Woke up the following morning and a tow truck was scheduled to pick up my car at 8. A friend came over that morning to give Vance and I a ride to the daycare---thanks god for that. Otherwise, I probably would have had the tow truck stop at the daycare and drop Vance off.
Finally, the tow truck arrived. The driver asked for the key and attempted to figure out what's wrong with my car. The minute he started it, he figured out what's wrong. He told me that the car wasn't recognizing the key. Again, that baffled me to no end. How could it not "recognized" the key. He asked me what happen to the plastic coating on my key? The plastic coating that covers the head of the key was dismantled and obviously been removed. Long story short, my friend removed it (the loop that the key ring is supposed to hooked on was busted, so removing it entirely would allow me to put it back on my key chain.
And to vaguely explain this, that plastic coating has a sensor that the car is not picking up and not recognizing since it's been detached...So voila! We figured it out. Should have not removed that plasic covering....Too late now--it's gone!
We made some progress after we've solved what's wrong with my car. It wasn't an internal mechanic issues after all--thank's god. But the car still needs to get taken to the dealership so that they can make me a new key and reprogram it. So off I went with the tow truck.
Needless to say, it was quite an interesting day for me. An ordeal that I had to deal on my own. As I was inside that tow truck on our way to the dealership, I looked back at my car while it was getting towed. It made me realized how dependent we are on our private transportation. In major cities such as N.Y, DC, Chicago, it's not as hard to get around using a public transportation but for the most part in this country, we rely too much on our private vehicle. We should have a better system to combat any transportation or vehicle issues that some of us are guaranteed to encounter at some point.
America is one of the biggest oil consumer in the world and part of it is because we don't have the public transportation that some countries have been using for many decades now to eliminate the needs of a car AT ALL TIMES--which is something I personally find unnecessary. It makes me question why we haven't yet invented a bullet train like they have in Japan and in Europe. I am a strong advocate of a public transportation because not only that it can reduce our constant--high-volume needs to rely on domestic and foreign oil, it can also help save the environment if we reduce the amount of driver on the road that's contributing to the air pollution.
Our ability to create this is not in question whatsoever. But rather brings the question if this is going to occur anytime soon. When are we going to decide and put emphasis on the importance of integrating the public transportation in our daily needs. So far, we have got the health care on the spotlight. Trying to reform it for the better (hence, for the better--meaning I am ALL FOR IT). A new legislation should be considered and reform as well to fund and implement a better public transportation in our country.
I do not remember (for better lack of word) the feeling of being "crippled" when my car is having issues when I lived in Asia. Here is a completely different case. When I realized that my car wasn't working, a sense of "crippleness" and the feeling like my freedom was amputated suddenly hit me from every angle. It was a terrible feeling. I literally can't go anywhere without costing me an arm and a leg if I don't have a vehicle.
Anyway, the dealership was able to make me a new key and re-programmed my car. It took pretty much all day. It was indeed a stressful and an eventful day but to some degree, I am somewhat thankful that I had to go through that. It may sound insignificant but handling random obstacles like this can help you appreciate a lot of things..It makes you realize as a person how strong you are, praise your ability to put a nonchalant face in the middle of some of the most stressful and frustrating situation like I had. For me it did--thus, I found some positive outcome from this entire ordeal.
In conclusion---watch out for curve balls that life throws at you. Just when you think you're doing great, a curve ball can be thrown your way and you have to be prepare for that. Personally, I'd take any curve ball. Just not any car issues. I love my Honda Civic and I hope this won't happen again. ***Below is the image that I took from inside the tow truck. I managed to find some humor in my ordeal and found several moments to be comical; such moments when I was taking this picture and talking to the tow truck driver about my key.
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