The Call is Coming from Inside the Car
Magda and I were headed back downstate following a lovely spring weekend in the Catskills. We’d gone by the mechanic for them to fix my ABS sensor, which a young grease stained mechanic had broken when changing my wheel baring. Apparently this happens. Wheel bearings rust over and become fused with the sensor. It is not unlike going in for heart surgery (see: my mom) and having them nick a nerve on your diaphragm because you have a build up of scar tissue from your last surgery.
Is the surgeon at fault? Who’s to say. Cost of doing business? I guess? The kid hadn’t even mentioned that he’d broken the sensor until I asked if he’d found anything else wrong—since they always find something else wrong. “Oh yeah,” he said, “the ABS light will be on since the sensor broke.”
“Well, is that a me problem or a you problem,” I asked.
The kid shrugged. Turns out it was a me problem.
All this to say I was none too pleased to be visiting the mechanic’s again, especially in the small town of Margaretville, NY—which is usually lovely, except that on a Tuesday everything is closed. Tuesday is the new Sunday and I get it. Except it meant that after a short depressing walk under gray skies, Magda and I returned to the shop to be assaulted by Dr. Phil reruns. Guys. He’s not a real doctor. We got the car back at right about the time the new Jennifer Hudson talk show came on. Can anyone get their own show? Can I have a show?
I paid, while Magda audibly grumbled about having to pay for a problem caused by them. I told her we should feel lucky. They’d fixed our car in about an hour, but there was one old timer who learned his car wouldn’t be done until the next day. The ladies behind the counter kindly offered to give him a ride home, and then pick him up and take him to his doctor’s appointment in the morning. We both grudgingly agreed this was a nice thing to do. He went outside to smoke a cigarette.
On the upside, when we started the car it appeared everything was fixed. For the first time in some months there wasn’t a light on, or a rattle, or a grinding noise emanating from who knows where. I silently wondered how long that was going to last because when it comes to cars that are approaching ten years old, it pays to be pessimistic.
We made our way across a mountain pass and down through the lush Esopus Valley where spring was lighting a yellow fire of budding leaves across the rolling hills. Beams of sun broke through the clouds to illuminate the dramatic turns in the Esopus Creek as it twisted through tiny hamlets on its journey towards the Hudson River. The landscape is beautiful and quite remote for New York State. There was no cell reception until we approached Kingston, the first capital of New York and an old Hudson River whaling port.
As we reached the lowlands, a rhythmic beeping commenced, coming from somewhere in the back of the car. As it got louder and more insistent, we looked at each other with dread. We can’t seem to catch a break.
It sounded computerized though, not the usual cry for help our car would make. It almost sounded as if someone had left their phone somewhere beneath the car, and was calling it in a panic, hoping to get it back.
Perhaps while changing the ABS sensor.
“Hello??” a young woman’s voice asked eagerly as I called her on her own phone. We’d pulled over for gas and tore apart the neatly packed contents of our trunk. We took out our Ikea boxes we were returning to the store (is it me or are Ikea’s chairs looking cheaper and cheaper?) We took out the foam panels that hide the spare tire. We were starting to pry more panels out when the phone rang again. It was under the spare tire. The call was coming from inside the car.
“Yes, I think I have your phone? By chance do you know anyone who is a mechanic in Margaretville?”
It turns out, and I’m actually not clear on the ownership issues here, but the vastly relieved young woman owned the phone, but somehow her boyfriend, our ABS sensor breaking mechanic, had had her phone and left it in our car, because, generation Z? As we emerged from the mountains and regained signal, she’d followed her phone on the FindMy app and watched with horror as it maintained a steady pace out of the Catskills and towards New York City. I told her we’d be coming back in a few days and would be happy to meet up and give her her phone back.
Part of me wishes it was the mechanic who’d called. And part of me wishes I was the sort of person who would say, when asked when they could get their phone back,
“Actually, this sounds like a you problem.”
And then I’d hang up. And then my car would break down. And any spark of fleeting joy I would have gotten from my delicious payback would have been doused out by my own tears.