Okay... Who the Hell ever heard of a "safety button"?

So, last night, delivering pizzas, had to deliver to the KSU campus. Absolutely no problems until I go to leave, and my car won't start. The lights are all on, my radio can play, EVERYTHING IS WORKING, but the car is just going, "click". Luckily for me someone was helping a friend move in, so I got their attention and asked if they had cables, which I don't even know why I don't have my own, and they tried to give me a jump. It didn't even get the car to try to turn over, just that "click".

By the way, the part I'm parked at, isn't a parking space, so legally I'm not even supposed to be here, and on any other day if the KSU Campus Security came around I would have gotten a ticket and possibly even a tow. Not my fault they don't have better parking set ups, but that's a different blog for a different time. Anyway, I got a hold of my insurance company and set up a tow, and luckily KSU Security came around and they didn't give me hassle when I told them I was broken down. Unluckily my phone battery is dying so I don't know how long I have until my phone dies. If the tow truck needs to call me, I don't know how they'll be able to if it does crap out.

Also, I need to call work and let them know I'm stuck, and try to get a hold of someone who can take me to work so I can turn in my money for the night. So...by the grace of the Gods, I make the two calls I need to and lean back, trying to keep myself together. I've been going through a lot of stress lately and now, with a broken down car that I have no idea what's going on with it, all I can think of is this. If this car is broken down, how much will it take? And how long will it take? Every day I can't work, is one more day I can't pay rent for the hotel we're in. And, my car payment is coming up, how can I pay it if I have to have some kind of repair that needs to be done? So I'm pretty close to having a break down, definitely feeling nothing but a feeling of loss and defeat.

So, my friend's dad is able to come get me to take me to work, and the tow truck arrives. Everything runs smoothly on getting my car on the truck and headed home, and Nojuan's dad takes me to work. Kyle, the shift supervisor that night, lets me know he thinks it might be my starter, and if I get the part and I can't find anyone who will install it for less than $140 he'll go ahead and do it for me free of charge. So, head home and get my car off the truck bed, and go inside. By now it's almost 1am, and I'm not even tired, I stay up killing dragons on Skyrim, until about 5 when the net comes back on. Look up places and copy down numbers for who is open on a Saturday.

After a small nap, I'm feeling a little positive in regards to my search, so I make my calls and Pep Boys will check it out for free, unless they have to dig further into it. Call my insurance company, get it towed there, and during the wait, I'm feeling VERY upbeat and positive. Maybe it's just an electrical problem that's an easy fix, or it's something as simple as a loose connection... So the guy, Patrick, comes in and he tells me, he won't even look at any other option until I get the battery replaced, and they want almost $195 to do so.

Now, I only have about $140 right now, which is not good towards my cause since he won't work with me on cost. There is an Auto Zone and an O'Reilly's Auto store across the street from each other, so I asked if I can get he battery for cheap, how much would they charge to put it in since I don't have any tools of my own right now. They tell me $30-40. I'm thinking if I can get an $80 battery, I can spend $110-120 in both cost and installation, so I walk over to Auto Zone and promptly walk out when they tell me the cheapest battery they have for me is $168. No. Fuck no.

Cross the street to O'Reilly's and talk to Chris, who stops me when I tell him they won't even look at any other options until I get my battery replaced. So even he agrees that's ridiculous, and he tells me that if I give him my ID, he'll let me borrow their tester that checks out the starter, alternator, and the battery so I can tell what exactly I need since Pep Boys is not being any help to me. I do the exchange and go back to my car and test the battery, make a note of my phone of what the test results said and took it back to O'Reilly's. He lets me know it's my battery, and he would be more than happy to put it in for free for me if I can get the car over to their lot.

Now, there's this little back road that goes behind Pep Boys and leads over to a small street that crosses over to the O'Reilly's parking lot. It really is not that far of a push, so it should be easy as Hell. The only obstacle to getting there is to leave the Pep Boys parking lot there's a small uphill push, and it is a road that's used by people avoiding the traffic lights. Now, all I have with me is Nojuan, and the two of us are having Hell with this up hill push, and the car starts to slip, plus a car is coming, so I jump back in and put it in park until the car goes by and we have a moment to gather ourselves together strength wise.

The car won't come out of park. It's stuck is fucking park. So I take the keys out of the ignition and at this point, shit is starting to pile up. The car's broken down, the car won't come out of park, and we're partially in the road. My ears are so flat on my head from the vast feeling of helplessness that is just overwhelming me at this point while Nojuan is calling Xan to get some extra muscle for if we can get the car out of park. While we're waiting a couple who lives in the same hotel as us pulls up and tries to help us get it out of park, but now, da-da-da-da!!!!!! The key won't go into the off position, or come out of the ignition. <-_-> *WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE*

Now the guy is saying it could be my linkage. I know that's not cheap. I don't need this. I don't need this. This isn't happening. It's just not. They eventually leave and I'm trying to keep myself calm while I call my insurance to get it towed again, to the auto place. I called my insurance earlier, before I called shops, to ask them how many tows I'm allowed. They guy I spoke to said I had unlimited towing, up to 100 miles per tow. That's great in my book, so I call Nationwide again, and the lady tells me... "Oh, your policy doesn't cover re-tows."

And that was it. That was the bomb that broke the dam. I had a serious emotional breakdown because it just got a hell of a lot worse.

1) Car won't do anything but click.
2) Car is stuck in park.
3) Keys stuck in ignition.
4) Car partially in road.
5) Car can not be towed.
6) Even if somehow I can get the car to O'Reilly's, the trunk, where my battery is, won't open.

Add that shit to all my stress BEFORE this happened and I lost it. So a lady comes along who is now offering to see if she can get me jumped, but when we let her know it can't get jumped, she's determined to help us. While we're discussing what to do, Xan goes to see if Pep Boys has jumper cables, even though I told him it can't jump. He comes back with a mechanic, who says to me in regards to my car being stuck in park, "Did you hit the safety button?"

*cue deadpan face* "The what?"

Dude gets in the car, takes our his pen, plucks off a cover I never even noticed by my gear shift and when he hits it, shifts it into neutral and puts on the safety break so it can stay in neutral. WHO THE HELL MADE A SAFETY BUTTON!?!?!?!?!

So the lady, bless her heart, stops traffic for us by standing in the road like a determined cow, while Xan and Nojuan push and I steer the car onto the road. Once on the road, we waited for the cars she had stopped to go by, and started pushing. Once it hit the down grade of the hill, gravity took over and I steered it down to the stop sign at the road we need to cross to get to O'Reilly's. I wait for them to catch up to me and we get it to O'Reilly's, where Chris lets me know he's leaving for the day with how long it took us to get to him, but he talked to Abe, who is going to take over and help us the way he was going to.

So Abe applied the core charge to my new battery, which wound up only costing me $113 after tax, hell of a lot better than $195 Pep Boys wanted. So we get it installed, and now here comes the moment of truth. I get in the car and turn the keys....And the engine roars to life. I cut the engine, the keys go fully into the off position, and come out.

All of that stress, all of that trouble, boiled down to this. By the way, I had been up since 4pm and by the time this all comes together on being done, and it's time to go home, it's a little after 2pm. So I crashed when I got home, thanks to Xan, who carb crashed me and Nojuan, who had stayed up with me through all of this all well.

Now that I got all of that out, I'm going to go kill some dragons on Skyrim. Thank you Bethesda.

Signing off,
Lily

ps- Thank you guys for over 300 journal views, you guys are awesome ^_^!