Fear and Loathing in... Baker, CA?

worlds tallest thermometer, baker, CA.

 

 

So, this past Wednesday, we left L.A. bound for Las Vegas. We had a hotel reservation at Treasure Island on the strip (not as expensive as you would expect) and we were psyched to have a shower and relax. Now, the morning before we left for LV, we had breakfast and coffee (so damn cheap, btw) at Ikea, and came out to the car, relaxed and in high spirits. Then our car wouldn't start. It clicked, all of the lights came on, but the engine sat in a obnoxious stupor. We sat, dismayed, and Esther called AAA. One service technician came, and informed us that our starter was "stuck." He then proceeded to band on the starter with a metal rod while Esther turned the key. Nothing. So he called for a tow-truck. After circling the parking lot about 3 times, despite Esther's perfect directions ("right in front of the front door, with a red bike on the back of our car") the tow-truck guy asked to try the key himself, turned it a bunch of times rapid fire amid a flurry of clicks, and the engine started. Thank the lord baby Jesus Christ. So we continued on our last day in L.A., saw Jarrod from Storage Wars, and hit few Goodwills. So the next day, we leave, excited that it was only a 3 hour drive or so to Vegas. About 80 miles away, in Baker California, we stop at a Burger King to go pee and get some coffee. After turning the car on multiple times since the Ikea incident, the car won't start again. Awesome. We had it timed perfectly so we would arrive in Vegas right at check-in time to milk every second out of the hotel room that we could. Key word, had. So we call AAA again, and they send a tow-truck. This guy was a few cards short of a full deck, and couldn't find the starter. Yup. So he tows us to his buddy's garage, who could "have a starter in an hour and a half." Garage is a strong word... more like an old gas station with about 50 cars parked like a game of real life Tetris, and the hobbit looking mechanic who owned the place came up to us. He came up to about my nipples, looked like he hadn't showered since 1984, and chain smoked. Esther sat in the waiting room (two broken chairs and a janky table) and I went out with the tow-truck guy, and the mechanic to help them push the car into his garage, so he could use his pneumatic lift to see under the car. So we get it in there, and he sets up all the lifters when "Oh wait, we can't use the lift... I don't have any electricity."..............Oh. Apparently Baker was working on power lines or something, I dunno. So he grabs a car jack, and jacks up the car so he can squeeze his giant belly under our car and look at the starter. While he's doing this, he's talking more to the tow-truck guy, but kind of to me about his medical problems. He had pneumonia, which he thought was just a bad cough. But he couldn't go to the hospital, because "4 guys I known went down to Barstow to that there hospital with nothin' but minor injuries and stuff, and ain't never come back! One guy, who worked here, had a cut on his lip. Doctors told he just bit his lip, and not to worry about it. 'Bout two months later, finds out its terminal cancer, and is dead within the week." So he spins the starter, or something, and he gets the car started by some miracle of the Divine. Tow-truck guy leaves. He was working on the car all of ten minutes. So we go back into his "office" and he does some "calculations" and informs us, with parts and labor, its going to run $700. Esther almost spit in his face. No thanks, we said, we've got reservations in Vegas, so we'll just get it fixed there. So we go to pay, ($95 for 10 minutes...) but there's still no power. So we can't use our credit cards. Wow. And we only have like $40 cash, so I have to leave Esther in the hands of this potential serial killer rapist sketchbag, and walk like a half-mile to find an ATM. So I walk a half-mile, but the ATM doesn't work. Neither does the next one... or the two after that. The fact that the town lost power meant all of the computer systems were all messed up. BUT, only the lower half of the town lost power, so I have to walk about a mile, one way, to this country store, and FINALLY get the cash. So I walk the mile back, pay the guy, and we drive off. Except now we can't turn the car off, or else it probably won't start. At long last, we make it to Vegas, find a parking spot in the garage for the hotel as close to the exit as possible (in anticipation of pushing it out the next day so we can get towed) and finally turn off the engine, knowing full well the pain in the ass waiting for us the next day. So the next day, Esther makes an appointment at a Hyundai dealership in town, and we take that fateful elevator ride down to the garage, neither of us ready to deal with this crap. Esther turns the key, and just a click. Blargh. We open the hood, Google what the starter looks like, and where it is on our phone, and I try to echo-locate it like a bat as Esther turns the key and it clicks. Just about as we're ready to give up and call AAA, the most beautiful sound in  the world issues from the engine, and it starts. We celebrate. At the Hyundai dealership, we find out it's covered under the warranty, it gets fixed, we don't pay a cent, and drive away clean. It only cost us a hundred dollars, and maybe a few years off our lives due to stress, but all in all... at least it didn't cost $700. Phew, I'm exhausted just writing about it.