I could be the Walrus, but I'd still have to bum rides off of people...It's a somber day here at the Hurricane Hole. The Ghetto Sled finally kicked the bucket for real last night, leaving me without a fine ride for the foreseable future.
I figured it was on it's last legs a few weeks back when the (year-old) transmission started slipping whenever I'd make a sharp turn. Since then it's gotten steadily worse, yet I'd hoped to nurse it along until July or so, when I'd have about $3500 or so saved up for a down payment on a new truck.
But yesterday afternoon, driving home from school, it was an especially warm day so I was keeping an eye on the temperature gauge due to my sometimes leaky radiator. I made it home, but the engine was running a little hot when I got here. I had to take a quick shower and get dressed for work, because I was meeting a few of my fellow poker students up in North Las Vegas at Jerry's Nugget for an early dinner, then we were going over to the Poker Palace to play in one of the nightly tournaments in which one of the guys from school got the dealing job.
Anyhow, before I left again, I made sure all of the fluids were topped off and everything under the hood was where it should be. Traffic was pretty heavy, and I was afraid that the car might overheat. It didn't, but about halfway there, it sounded like the transmission had a grinding noise going on. So while stopped for traffic lights, I'd slip it into neutral and the grinding would stop. But a block away from the casino, the car died, and the 'Check Engine' light and 'Charging System' lights came on. It restarted immediately, and I limped into the parking lot, but the Sled making noise like silverware in the garbage disposal.
I figured it just needed to cool off, so I went inside of Jerry's Nugget and gave Doc Al a call to commemorate my first return to the scene of our epic visit in December. About that time I saw Harry, the cardroom manager at the Flamingo--and more importantly--one of my poker instructors from school, ambling towards me. We hung out for a few minutes at the bar while waiting for the others to show up, and I amazed him with my ability to stick half-full water bottles to my head.
A few minutes later, the rest of the gang showed up and we headed towards Uncle Angelo's pizza joint, which doubles as the Nugget's coffee shop. There were six of us for dinner, and even with a few appetizers, the bill was only about $13 bucks apiece including tip. I had one of their 'famous' pizzas--it was good, but not crispy enough. (Metro is still the best, with the offering at the Monte Carlo brew pub a close second). Somebody else had prime rib, the girls had salads and calamari, and a few pasta dishes rounded out the dinner selections.
After that, the plan was to caravan up the road to the Poker Palace. Since I told everyone that my car was acting up, I was in the middle of the convoy in case of a breakdown.
I even checked the oil, the water, and the power steering and brake fluids again before we left the casino, and everything was right where is should've been, leading me to believe that the transmission seals might be the problem. But in another display of the car's miraculous self-healing power, it started right up and made no noise.
However, as soon as I accelerated out of the parking lot, I got a few seconds of a very bad vibration and the grinding noise came back. I made it to the Poker Palace easily enough, but by then I knew that there was something Very Wrong with the car. But there was nothing I could do about it there in the parking lot, so we all just went inside to the poker room. Everyone but my gal-pal Candy and I signed up for the tournament--she didn't think she was ready to play in a real tourney, and I had to leave for work an hour later--so we chose to be railbirds and just watched the action from the side.
Harry was the first of our crowd to get knocked out, but the other two of my fellow students were doing well and made it past the break.
Finally, around ten after seven, I decided that it was time for me to head to work. Luckily, the freeway was close by, and I figured that the open road would be easier on the transmission instead of the stop-n-go nonsense of the surface streets, so I figured I'd make it to work, nurse it home later, and deal with the repair on my day off.
Unfortunately, I only made it about four miles or so before the engine decide to blow itself apart. I was driving in the right lane, nursing the car along at around 60 mph when the oil pressure gauge lit up, fell to zero, and the car locked up and died. I quickly shifted into neutral and coasted to the side of the freeway, engulfed in smoke.
Nice.
So I called Candy, who offered to come to my rescue if the car didn't make it. At the time, I had to pee really bad, too. I skipped the adventure of the men's room at the Poker Palace, thinking I'd just go as soon as I got to the comparative luxury of the men's room once I got to work. So there I was, hopping around on one foot on the side of the road, waiting for rescue, and knowing that I wasn't going to make it to a proper facility.
So what did I do? I dropped trou there on the side of I-15 and peed under the front of the car, just in case a State Trooper or a Metro Cop decided to drive by and stop. That way I could tell them that my radiator blew instead of having them writing me a ticket for public lewdness or some other such nonsense.
I also had a couple of gallons of water in the trunk to wash my hands with, plus dump on the ground to look like an actual radiator leak. But it was all for naught, as Candy and Harry showed up just a few minutes later. We got the car as far off the should as we could, I grabbed whatever essentials I needed, and we headed south towards my casino.
I made a quick call to work, telling them of my transportation issues, and that I was running a few minutes late. The shift boss changed to road map to give me the first break of the night, and I was only about ten minutes late by the time I was dropped off at the front door. Of course I was stressed out, and having been out in the heat on the side of the road, the sweat was just pouring off of me. A quick stop at the gift shop for a couple of bottles of water helped, and I ran back to the uniform room and got dressed.
Luckily one of the gals who has mostly the same schedule as me offered to give me a ride to and from work until I get my transportation issue settled, and several of my regular players are car salesmen down the road at the Henderson Auto Mall, so I collected several business cards, too.
But until then, I'm going to have to embrace the joys of staying home on my days off, and I've got to take a break from school for a few weeks, too. I'm going to be car-less for probably two to three weeks, but I've arranged for a long-term rental starting on the 9th of June, the day that my sister Cyndi and her husband David arrive in town for the weekend. So I'll be pimpin' around in a Stratus for a few weeks until I buy a replacement for the Sled. I don't think I'll be able to get exactly what I want, unlike that Uber-buffoon from Santa Barbara, LV Terry, who sent me a photo of the newest member of his family the other day...
Right now, I'm all about the mission at hand, which is to save up all the cash I can get my hands on in order to pay for a new ride. All that matters is that it has a working cd player, electric windows, and most importantly, air conditioning.
The biggest pisser of this whole situation was that just the day before, I'd filled it up with $54 worth of gas. I'll need to get down to the junkyard and siphon that shiat this week.
But hopefully soon I'll have a new place to hang my fuzzy dice.
Mikey
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