If I survive this relocation without a lengthy sentence at in some type of mental health facility, I expect one of you dear readers to send me a tiara and sash proclaiming my superiority. Just when buying and selling house was getting stressful, the Turk decided to throw a little more into the mix to test my stress capacity.
Last week, the Turk totaled his car. Impeccable timing right? (If I keep chanting, don’t kill him, don’t kill him, it will sink in right?) Here in Indianapolis there is an epidemic of something the Hoosiers refer to as potholes. However, these are not what the rest of the world might refer to as potholes. These giant missing chunks of road might best be called sinkholes or craters or most accurately, roadway caverns. According to the news, it seems the city neglected the issue for years and now, as one might expect, all hell is breaking loose creating potholes that can knock out a Beamer in 2.5 seconds flat.
You may recall from an earlier post (Here it is in case you missed it but I’m sure you didn’t because you’re a loyal reader of my brilliance.) that The Turk has an unhealthy obsession with BMWs but regrettably he’s got a Kia budget. To fuel his obsession and keep his marriage in tact, he’s learned to rebuild older Beamers with the patience I only wish he’d use on his offspring. The Turk spends hours creeping around nerd sites on the interwebs where dorks like him share tips and tricks about BMWs and I’m pretty sure it’s a cult.
Last year he lost his first “baby” to mechanical issues that went beyond what a simple Turk can do in a suburban garage. “The Ultimate Machine” has been sitting in my driveway since it’s demise as a sort of metal mausoleum. Each time he passed the molding mass he’d shed a tear. Likewise, each time I passed it, I flipped the car the bird. A few months ago he replaced it with a newer version he procured in some shady deal with a couple African guys. (For real, read all about it here.) While the first one was a death trap, the newer version was the one I wasn’t embarrassed to ride in. Unfortunately, driving to work on one of his last days in this city, he hit one of those geological mine-traps. Moments later my phone rang.
“I think I hurt my baby.”
“What?” I screamed with appropriate maternal panic. “What happened to the kids?”
“What? No! My Beamer. I hit a damn pothole. I hate this place. Why there giant holes in the road everywhere? God sakes! We not have roads this bad in Turkey. ”
-Insert hostile gestures and excessive eye rolling on my end of the line here.
“Can you still drive it or are you stranded somewhere?”
“No. I am driving but my car is making very big noise. It might be bad. I am going to BMW dealership.”
This is the point where my eyes rolled back like a cartoon character and my eyeballs were replaced with dollar signs while the cha-ching of a cash register rang between my ears. Nothing cheap ever happens at a BMW dealership.
Fast forward four days, after fighting a 4-day backlog of poor bastards who’d also lost their “babies” to Hoosier-quality potholes (You thought I was exaggerating how bad these things were.) the mechanic finally called with the damage report. $18,000. The Beamer was down and it was going to take nothing short of $18,000 to fix her.
In the midst of a lab in middle school science, my phone rang. Because it was the Turk, I worried something else had hit the fan so with one hand juggling beakers and a “zip-it” gesture to a bunch of 8th graders, I picked-up.
“My baby is dead.”
“Huh”
“They say it cost $18,000 to fix my baby.”
It seemed the epic pot-hole had broken the drive-shaft and sent the broken potion of the drive shaft careening through the transmission case and a few other mechanical things I didn’t care enough to comprehend. Thankfully, due to the presence of children not my own at the moment of receiving the information, I suppressed my desire to spew profanity.
It took mere seconds for my firm decision on the matter. “$18,000? Say goodbye girl. That baby is dead.”
When it comes to handling things like insurance or basically anything that requires phone communication, the Turk is out. “I cannot understand what they say on phone. I sound like idiot.” We didn’t do phone communication when we dated for that exact reason. But I get it. I hate to do anything in Turkish on the phone. It’s one hundred times more difficult to comprehend a second language on the phone without being able to see and read body language. So as I drove to pick him up from the dealership I prepared to spend a few hours on the phone cleaning up the mess.
Much to my surprise, faced with the death of his beloved Beamer, the Turk was struck with brilliance. Similar to when adrenaline allows women to commit stunning feats of strength while in mama bear mode, the Turk had already spend an hour on the phone with the insurance company and all was taken care of. “They will send someone to check on my baby Monday. The lady said it is probably over but I can hope. Maybe it is not over yet.”
I wanted to tell him they were sending someone to pronounce his baby dead on Monday but not wanting to watch him weep like a broken fool all weekend, I lied. “You’re right. Maybe they can fix it.” Then, hoping to share my brilliant fix to the situation, I added, “You know, if they can’t fix your car, you can just take my car and we’ll get a new family car. I mean, you only need to commute to the train station. Seems like a perfect solution.”
Through his fog of depression, the Turk glared at me. “How I drive a Hyundai when I am obviously a BMW man?”
Well, they couldn’t fix his baby and and we are now awaiting a payout for the totaled car. Thanks to life in a city without public transport, we are currently sharing joint custody of a 10-year-old Hyundai and it’s not going well. But we’ve got far bigger issues to deal with over the next couple weeks so we’re sucking it up. We’ll get a car on the other side and hopefully both of us will make it out alive.
And that, my friends, was only one incident of drama in the week. There were many others and in the next installment I’ll explain how I bought homeowners insurance on a house I’ve never seen and drove 3 insurance agents to nearly wet themselves from laughter.
If anyone has connections at Bellevue, reserve me a room. It could be touch and go for the next few weeks.
Laughter Is Better Than Prozac 