The Car Curse

by Janis Patterson

It doesn’t matter how good a car you have, or how well you maintain it, you are going to have car trouble, and usually at the worst possible moment. Both The Husband and I are absolute maniacs on keeping our cars in the best possible condition, believing that it is easier and cheaper to do good maintenance than to fix problems caused by neglect. In spite of everything, though, cars will maniacally develop problems, and always when you need it the most.

This week at a simply gosh-awful early hour I drove an elderly friend of mine to have a cataract operation. My pampered and petted car started fine, but immediately showed that I had a low tire - the right rear. As there was no time to look for that fast-becoming-extinct institution the full-serve gas station (and do I miss them!) I simply started driving. Our cars have special run-flat tires and on visual inspection the tire looked just like its fellows, so I picked up my friend and off we went - slowly, as you aren’t supposed to go over 40 on a low run-flat - and got to the surgical center in plenty of time. As soon as she went into surgery - where I knew by experience it would be at least two to three hours before I could take her home - I asked the staff if there were a tire shop around. No one knew of one.

God bless Google! I got on my phone and searched and found three tire companies within two miles of the surgical center. I chose the one with the most good reviews and off I went - slowly. I’m glad the place had so many good reviews, because it certainly was unprepossessing to look at and without the reviews I probably would not have stopped there. I’m glad I did, though, because the man there was so kind - he not only put air in my tire, he checked all four tires and even put the car up a little so he could be sure that no tire had any kind of puncture. And - they even did state inspections, which I had been trying to fit into my schedule for almost a month! Total cost? $25. That unattractive little shop is many miles from my home, but I really intend to go back there next year for the inspection.

There are a couple of neat little wholesome lessons in this rather drab little tale - sometimes unexpected things happen no matter how well you prepare, and sometimes appearances really don’t count. I wish I could remember that.

Addendum :

After I finished this blog post, the Car Gremlins showed that they weren’t finished with us yet. Our house is very unusual; we have a large parking area in the back, but it can be accessed only through a long, narrow drive to the street through which, because we have several vehicles, we must back if we want to get out. The Husband leaves earliest and arrives back latest (I work from home) so his car is almost always on the outside of the queue. He parks in the driveway itself, where there is more cover from the depredations of birds. Yes, he pampers and pets that car even more than our beloved dog. We won’t talk about my place in the pecking order!

The other night we decided that I should run to our local Whataburger (best burgers in the world!) and pick up supper as I was too wiped too cook and The Husband had a headache. I go outside and as I always do when I drive his car move back the seat (he won’t drive unless his knees are halfway under his chin like a cricket’s) put the electronic key in its slot and suddenly the car goes crazy. There is a loud ticking from the trunk, all the running lights and some on the dashboard start to flash and I can neither get the car to start nor remove the key.

Of course, being a rather melodramatically-minded mystery writer, my first thought was ‘someone’s put a bomb in the car!’ The Husband, after I had quit screaming, poo-pooed the idea, but he couldn’t do any more to make the car behave than I could. After a long and hamburger-less night (we ended up eating frozen pizza) we called the service number at our dealership and they immediately sent out a tow truck. I had been fearful about how they would tow it, as our cars tow only from the front and the back was sticking out to the street with less than two feet clearance on either side.

However – the tow truck driver was a kind and knowledgeable man. He didn’t laugh at me and said all we had was a dead battery. I did know, having driven clunkers for many of my poor years, that batteries could fail in a single heartbeat (though usually not so spectacularly), but The Husband was skeptical that such a thing could happen to his pampered baby – until the driver started the car with a single jump and was able to drive it up on the flatbed tow truck with almost insulting ease.

As the tow truck drove away I could swear that our car was sniggering at us. The Car Curse rolls on, but the good news is we only have one vehicle – a close to 25 year old pick-up truck with almost 200,000 miles on it – left to go. However… it will probably outlast all of us.

Real People and Literary Vengeance

There was a great post on MMM discussing whether it's wise to base fictional characters on real people. I left a comment with my opinion, but decided to expound on it for my post today.

When the idea MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon was first born, the inspiration for the novel was a sincere desire to kill a woman we worked with -- ‘we’ being me and Maureen, my old writing partner and co-founder of our San Diego based theatrical troupe, Murder for Hire – on the entertainment for the first La Jolla Raymond Chandler Festival.

To quote MFH’s press release: Along with her best friend Maureen, Dana was co-producer/writer/director for a mystery-oriented theatrical troupe based in San Diego. While no actual murders occurred during their performances, there were times when the actors and clients made the idea very tempting.

Oh, so very tempting… I used to fantasize often about the demise of one of our clients, the woman who was in charge of the Gala Charity Dinner for the Chandler Festival. She was actually more of a client-in-law. We were hired by the head librarian for the newly opened Florence Riford La Jolla Library to do walking tours and a performance for the gala dinner. ‘Jane’ (not her real name) was hired by the Friends of the Library to put together the rest of the gala, hire the musicians, caterers, etc. She had a lot on her plate so one would have thought she’d be glad not to have to worry about the rest of the entertainment, right?

Hah.

Jane didn’t hire us and was one of those people who, if something wasn’t her idea, it meant it was a BAD idea. An evil, bad, wrong idea that must be squashed like a nasty bug. Murder for Hire, our troupe, was the bug in question. Unfortunately for Jane, MFH was not an easily squashed bug. We were more of a mutant ‘we’re a featured movie on Sci-Fi Channel’ type bug. She tried her best to get rid of us, but we had the head of the festival and most of the Friends of the Library on our side so we stayed. But OH, did I want to kill this woman. I think most of the cast and crew of MFH felt the same way, but I was definitely the yang to their yin, the Jay to their Silent Bob as far as my inability to keep my mouth shut.

I had a confrontation with her at one of our rehearsals, a slice of life that was immortalized in MFH: The Peruvian Pigeon. Yes, a few things were added because as pissed as she was at me after the real life encounter, it wasn’t really dramatic enough to work in the book. But everything that DID happen in the real life confrontation made it into this particular chapter. And oh, it felt good.

Jane was not the only character based on real people. Of course, I didn’t want to kill most of them…at least not as often as I dreamed of offing her. I admit there were times when our actors drove me bonkers. Not all of them And I’m not gonna name any names here because even the ones who were the most annoying still did a good job and…well…most of my memories of our cast are very fond. And the memories that aren’t so fond will no doubt make it into the next book, MURDER FOR HIRE: The Big Snooze.

At any rate, murder is a great incentive for fiction if you don’t want to go to jail. Of course, you also have to take into consideration things like ‘libel’ and ‘lawsuits’, but changing the names and physical descriptions to protect the guilty should take care of that. And if someone in real life does recognize themselves in your work of fiction? Well, if they’re heinous enough, how many of them will actually want to bring attention to the fact they were the inspiration for the C-U-Next-Tuesday in your book?

As an interesting wrap-up, I set up three Google alerts to help track my exposure on the ‘net (we’re not talking about those ‘See Nude Pictures of Dana Fredsti here’ hits), one for my name, one for Murder for Hire and another for Peruvian Pigeon. 90 percent of the hits I’ve gotten for Murder for Hire are about actual murders or plots in which someone was hired to rub someone else out. If the government is monitoring my email and interests, I could be in trouble.