Way back before cell phones were mandatory accessories, my VW Bug decided to break down on the 405 Freeway at 1 a.m.
As the only one of my college crew that had a car, I had been officially appointed the designated driver for an evening of dancing in Westwood. The drive back to our college in Long Beach had been filled with the animated recounting of everyone's adventures that evening, until the cough and wheeze of my Bug sucked the life right out of the party.
At that time of night, none of us was about to walk to a call box in our platform shoes and clingy disco dresses, so we sat huddled and frightened in the Bug for five hours watching the sun rise over L.A., until we were finally saved by a CHP officer who made the call to a tow company for us.
While there is never a good time for a vehicle break down, sometimes it seems like our vehicles intentionally pick the most inopportune times and stress-inducing ways to quit on us.
A few decades ago, when Mark Cardenas of Alta Loma was 18, his '65 Mustang managed to break down in the middle of the desert at 3 in the morning. If it hadn't been for some helpful bikers who happened to be passing, Cardenas would have spent the rest of that day commiserating with the scorpions.
For Hollis Moore of Bonsall, the simple chore of changing a flat tire became an all-day nightmare when he found that the lug nuts for his mags did not fit the spare.
After an entire afternoon of searching and finally locating the correct-size lug nuts, Moore went to go put the spare on only to discover that he now did not have the correct-size wrench for the lug nuts.
"I ended up wasting the better part of a Saturday over one lousy flat tire," Moore said.
A few years back, my mother and brother were driving from Lake Tahoe with two big dogs in the car when my brother noticed that the minivan's "check engine" light had come on.
My brother quickly pulled off the freeway at the first exit. When he opened the hood, flames shot out and he panicked. "Get out of the car! Get out of the car!" was all my mother heard as she watched my brother take off at a full sprint down the street with his arms waving wildly in the air.
When my mother opened the car door, her big Labrador leapt out of the car and started chasing my brother. Then she saw the flames and was about to jump out of the minivan, too, when she realized that her German shepherd was still in the vehicle. The dog refused to move.
So my petite mother, who was a septuagenarian at that time, picked up the huge dog and started jogging down the street, as well.
It turns out that my brother had been running to a gas station a few hundred feet away and he returned with a gas station attendant and a fire extinguisher. They managed to put out the fire before it did too much more damage to the minivan.
I'm afraid I couldn't say the same for my brother's damaged ego, as he used to cringe when my mother retold the story of his panicked mad dash from the minivan countless times over the ensuing years.
Michelle Groh-Gordy is the owner of InterActive! Traffic School Online at www.trafficinteractive.com , and writes a syndicated weekly column on driving for the publications of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.
