car troubles.

So my recent Facebook fast was mostly to deal with a broken down car.  Scroll to the bottom if you want to see how I dealt with that.

My mom with Flaming Moe circa 1997 before my band friends t.p.ed it

When I learned how to drive, my parents gave me a little Chevy s-10 pickup.  In college, one of my friends dubbed it "Flaming Moe" partially due to the color (red) and partial irony due to the gutless little engine that thwarted my lead-foot.  Driving from Seattle to Portland in that 70 mph zone was always interesting because I never knew if I could maintain 70 going up any hills.  Oh but it was a hit with the people in my dorm, because my dad had installed two seats in the back.  Yes, you had to lower the tailgate to get in them, but they had seatbelts and everything.  Of course, when you load 8 or 10 college students in it to get groceries they weren't all *wearing* the seatbelts..... and it also meant I was the first call when a friend was moving to a new apartment. 

But I drove that thing for almost ten years, after my parents had driven it for ten, and sold it to pay our rent one very lean summer in Chicago (yay grad school!)  After all, we didn't need two cars in the city.  And the one Chicago winter it did live through did not treat it well.  The windshield fluid sprayer froze and broke.  My exhaust pipe rusted clean through, and driving down Lakeshore Drive one day, I hit a rather large pothole and when I got to work, realized I had lost my muffler.

The Black Hole. 

When we moved back to the Northwest, we bought a black Hyundai Sonata for my 86 mile-a-day commute. After fixing the window tracks, replacing the transmission (twice) and the front wheel falling off (among several other things), we dubbed it "the Black Hole" and replaced it with a purple Honda Civic.  NEVER BUY A HYUNDAI.  NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER. 

Four years later, the Civic was stolen and found abandoned, then impounded.  We started calling it "Honda Dufresne" after the lead character in Stephen King's Shawshank Redemption because it was impounded for a crime it didn't commit (and the exhaust manifold was torn apart, and if you know the book/movie.... well.....).  Honda Dufresne got me to and from Longview every day, and was a great reliable little car, until it overheated.  Which sounds like it wasn't reliable.  Except it happened 80,000 miles after I bought it. 

"Honda Dufresne"

The summer before it was stolen, I was driving home with Sam (then 2 1/2 years old) from California, and it overheated in Medford.  Put some water in it and went on my merry way, but as it turns out, it was the fan and the radiator cap.  Made it to a little town called Wolf Creek where a mechanic who was missing teeth pulled a relay out of his own car (same model) to get me to Roseburg so I could buy a radiator cap.  Made it home, no issues after that. 

*HERE'S THE PART THAT HAPPENED RECENTLY*Fast forward to about two weeks ago, driving to Bend, it starts to overheat again, but this time I'm on a highway with no services, no cell service, and I have two children with me now.  Made it to Bend where the radiator and thermostat was replaced.  Apparently, the new thermostat overloaded that used fan relay that was put in by the guy in Wolf Creek....it overheated all the way back from Bend to Woodburn, where I called for a tow truck and a very good friend to get me and my kids (and her eleven year old son) home safely.  After getting it towed to a dealership, I was informed that the head gasket was leaking (gee, ya think after driving it 300 miles while overheating and no fan?!) and that their sales department would give me $500 for it.  They couldn't offer me more for it because "it has a quarter-panel that isn't original to the car and it must have been wrecked at some point." 

Nuh uh, boy.  Homie don't play that game.  I resisted the temptation to tell him to look up the CarFax and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.....but instead told him a tow truck would be by to retrieve it.  Immediately posted an ad on Craigslist to sell it for $1000, no pictures, full disclosure.  Within 24 hours, I had it sold.  So while I was on my Facebook fast this last week, I was fixing the Honda.

stock photo but ours is this same color with the alloy wheels.  Look Mom! I fixed the Honda!

And we shall call him "Morpheus."
UPDATE Jan 2020: We still have the Toyota Matrix, but we have moved to Florida and the new FL license plate has "NED" as the letters.  We never felt like Morpheus really fit the personality of the car (not badass enough). So this car is now called NED.