Fools in the Rain
My ambitions for today were really not very strong, really they were not. But this is ridiculous.
I arose late, feeling guilty but satisfied because I finally got a good night’s sleep (after several weeks of restless nights). And I went for a late, sloggy, sloshy, dance-around-puddles run in El Lago Kabah (normally a park, but recently a lake). But it was a run and a novel thing after days of having my run get rained out. And after that we decided to take the dogs down to Puerto Morelos for a romp on the beach (this would have been Lucy-the-invader-puppy’s first beach experience).
But it never happened. We got halfway there and then it started to rain. Again. More rain.
So hubby turned on the wipers. And the wipers went…up…up…and then they stopped…frozen…not moving…frozen at their apex…in the middle of the windshield.
We pulled over…and I proceeded to get a headache while hubby got wet checking both the wiper motor and the fuses. Then my headache got worse while hubby got wetter checking everything again.
We sat there on the side of a busy, dangerous highway, with cars zooming past us at high speeds, stricken, broken, unable to see out of the windshield…the sweet warbling of Coldplay coming from the speakers…and me slightly amused at how stupid it all was…and, frankly, enjoying the whole Impressionism rain-on-the-windshield thing.
We sat there for a while, trying to decide if we should make a plan…if we should call a tow truck and then battle the insurance company for a towing charge reimbursement…if we should try to drive slowly on the shoulder to somewhere…if we should wait it out…wondering how soon it would be before we actually would get in a real argument if we sat there waiting…
And finally the rain slowed a tiny bit and we could just barely make out a sign ahead…there was a gas station ahead…so we did decide to limp along in our Impressionist fog and blur until we reached civilization…not only a gas station but also a convenience store. Over priced Gatorade and MSG-laden potato chips. We’d been saved.
But the rain continued. And so did our dilemma. Do we call a tow truck…does one of us take the bus home to get the other car…but then what? Do we wait out the rain…but what if it gets dark…what if the fucking rain never ends? We punted…we walked the dogs.
My Neo-Impressionist view of my afternoon
And after that clarity came, not to the windshield, but to our feeble brains. Hubby removed one windshield wiper, wielding it like a weapon and decided that he would damn well wipe his own windshield while he was driving. Fortunately it wasn’t raining hard anymore so this was actually a workable solution.
Windshield Wipe Thyself!
We turned around and drove home with hubby wiping his way… By the time we got home we had honed a whole series of jokes about how shitty other cars were, except for their working wipers…and he would ask me if I could see something ahead…and I would reply “I can’t see shit,” but then I would warn him not to hit a pedestrian who wasn’t there…by the time we got home we were giggling like fools…
October 24th, 2008 22:27
I love it because I imagine it is PERFECTLY NATURAL to see someone manually wiping the windows in the rain. Just not on a car like yours.
October 27th, 2008 22:19
What a writer you are! Taking an ordinary catastrophe that has happened to all of us and turning it into such a witty tale! Can you tell I enjoyed it!
October 28th, 2008 11:03
Thanks for the compliments. It was amusing, if not completely stupid. I just hope hubby can fix it without paying for a new motor, the new wiper motor is $400 USD and has to be ordered from DF.
November 29th, 2008 10:01
$400.00 for a wiper motor?!?!?! What are you driving? a Rolls Royce?.Do they have junk yards in your part of Mexico?
December 1st, 2008 11:02
Not a Rolls Royce, just a picky little Renault Clio. Fortunately we did not have to buy a new as hubby took the old one apart and managed to fix it. But yes, the replacement really was $400 and was not in stock.