When you are a poor university student and the first vehicle you purchase is pretty much ten years older than you are, you’d better be prepared for a few mishaps. Being the vehicle-ownership virgin that I was, I was certainly not prepared for my first experience owning a vehicle. I am so thankful for Doug, I must say, but I practically caused the guy a heart-attack the whole time I was dealing with Cloud 9’s little, ahem, ticks.
After my breakdown about the insurance issue, Doug was really wary that I was going to have another freak-out. Back from Paris (awesome trip), I was plunged right into final projects, grad school applications, a job hunt, and the pressures of keeping my grades high enough to be accepted into my masters programs. On top of all this, I had to find a place to keep the van.
We had initially stored the beast at Doug’s grandma’s place, since her sister, who usually lived there, had gone to Europe for a month and therefore didn’t need the driveway. She was due to return a week after my trip to Paris, so Doug and I had to get rid of the van stat. I asked around, having some friends who live in Ottawa, but no one had extra space for a vehicle, especially an “eyesore” like mine. Doug’s mother’s place was an option, but we didn’t want to burden her with a packed driveway for the duration of the winter. And then I remembered that I had a parking space at my apartment. I dug out my lease and there it was in black and white: One parking space included in the rent.
My landlord, however, chose to interpret this amenity differently than I. Upon texting her about the location of the parking space, I received a reply explaining that my roommate Stefanie Ligterink and I had told her we didn’t need a parking space and that was why she agreed to lower the monthly rent for us. I was confused. Why was it in my lease that I had a parking space when we’d apparently had this conversation before signing it? And why didn’t Stefanie or I even remember this conversation?
Conversation or no, according to our lease, we had a parking space. I wrote my landlord an email explaining my situation – that I needed a place for my van and that it wouldn’t move over the course of the winter. She wrote back saying that the driveway was too small for three cars (she and her boyfriend both had vehicles) and that my van would take up too much space. I wasn’t going to press the issue, not wanting to cause any bad blood between myself and my landlord, who lived right above me. But she came through with a parking spot in the end.
Luckily enough, her boyfriend was the son of a storage-yard owner, so my landlord arranged to have the van stored at this storage lot, except it was in Smith Falls. I was okay with the arrangement since I had nowhere else to put the van, so I contacted the storage-yard owner, Judy, and set a date and time for drop-off.
The day of, I bundled in a million layers, unsure as to whether the van had a working heater or not. I climbed behind the wheel, set up my iPod, and started her up. Then we were off. We took the back roads, not sure how she would fare on this, her first long-distance trip since arriving in Ottawa. She drove fairly well, but as I quickly discovered, she did not have a working heater. My iPod promptly drained its batteries in protest of being subjected to such cold environmental conditions, so I drove in silence with the sound of the non-working heater as my only company. Being the beginning of November, it was quite nippy outside, but I kept my windows up and my thick mittens on, and drove into the night. I was following Doug, who was following a GPS.
It took us about an hour and a half to get to Smith Falls. I was freezing by the time we got there, despite my many layers. Just as we were coming up to the turn that would take us out to the storage yard, the van stalled. I had nowhere to pull over, and in the dark with no dash lights or overhead lights to speak of, I couldn’t find my 4-ways. I coasted to a stop in the middle of a busy road and put on my right blinker, hoping Doug would realize I wasn’t behind him anymore since I couldn’t honk my horn with the car engine off.
Angry drivers, not realizing I was completely stopped, swerved around me, honking their horns as if I didn’t know I was a hazard to traffic. I tried desperately to start the engine. Nothing. Again and again, nothing. I couldn’t figure out what to do! About fifteen minutes later, Doug realized I had disappeared from his rear-view mirror and he came looking for me. “I think I’m out of gas!” I told him. He didn’t think that was the case, but when we got the van started up again, we went to the gas station just in case. We were now running fifteen minutes late for our meeting with Judy at the storage yard. It was around 6pmish, but it was already dark out.
We embarked once again, the tank at least half full of gas, and the GPS leading the way. For twenty minutes we drove up and down dark country roads, searching for the storage yard. My phone buzzed. It was my landlord calling to tell me Judy was getting angry that we were so late. I called Doug, giving him the number my landlord provided me, hoping we would find the place soon.
An hour and a half late and a second stalling later we finally pulled into the driveway of the storage yard. Judy was far from pleased, understandably. She had been waiting in her car the entire time. Doug and I apologized profusely. I gave Judy the truffles and card I had made for her as a thank you for allowing me to store my van on her lot. Doug gave her $100 as an apology for keeping her so late. I signed a contract stating that I would remove the van as of April 30 and off she went.
I felt like an ice cube and Doug and I were both super stressed and grumpy, but we took a couple pictures with the van and then headed home.
-Nicole
No comments:
Post a Comment