{"id":6378,"date":"2011-03-31T02:23:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T02:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6378"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:36:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:36:25","slug":"day-137-1993-saab-tow-and-throw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6378","title":{"rendered":"Day 137 – 1993 Saab (Tow and Throw?)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This may be premature, but my little car broke down today and I think it might be finished.\u00a0 I had a lousy day at school, then play practice just made me anxious because opening night is just over a week away and students are still using their scripts as crutches (!!!), and then, driving home around 5:30 pm, my car radio stopped working.\u00a0 The one thing that still functioned on that car!\u00a0 But that was just foreshadowing.\u00a0 The “Check Gear Box” light came on and I just wasn’t getting any acceleration.\u00a0 I was just about to pull over and restart the car (which has “solved” the problem in the past) when the car decided to beat me to the punch.\u00a0 Fortunately, we were able to coast onto a long gravel driveway and out of the way of traffic. Melissa had to come get us.\u00a0 The car would only make a strange clicking sound when I turned the key.\u00a0 We tried jumping it – knowing it was a slim hope that there was only a problem with the battery – but it didn’t make one volt of a difference. I’ve spent most of the evening alternately stewing and living in denial.\u00a0 You can ask Melissa – I was not much fun to be around.\u00a0 I’m feeling paralyzed regarding what to do next.\u00a0 For a year now I have been anticipating that car giving up the ghost – I figured it was just waiting until the most unopportune time.\u00a0 (It hates me.)\u00a0 I have been dealing with its rough running mainly by pretending it wasn’t that bad.\u00a0 Now I think it really might be dead.\u00a0 From the Drama Queen (age 8) and Dats (age 9)\u00a0in the backseat came\u00a0a suggestion that was already in my mind:\u00a0 “Hey, Daddy, is this going to be your Throw of the day?”\u00a0 Maybe so. But what if it’s not quite dead?\u00a0 What if a couple of hundred dollars will get it back on the road strong enough to last another year or so until we’re ready to move to Haiti?\u00a0 On the other hand, what if I take it to a mechanic and spend several hundred just to get an estimate in the thousands?\u00a0 I only paid $2,000 for it and it’s already had its fair share of expensive repairs.\u00a0 Should I just send it to the junkyard and see if I can get a couple hundred out of it to put towards some other junker?\u00a0 I guess that’s the direction I’m currently leaning, but like I said, I feel a bit paralyzed about making the wrong decision.\u00a0 We can’t really afford a thousand dollar mistake.\u00a0 I need to go to bed, pray about it, and maybe it will be clearer in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"\/
There it sits.\u00a0 I was tempted to push it another quarter mile to the river.\u00a0 Dats reminded me to take a picture of it for the blog, and I just happened to have my camera along, so I did.\u00a0 Don't let its looks fool you – it's a junker!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may be premature, but my little car broke down today and I think it might be finished.\u00a0 I had a lousy day at school, then play practice just made me anxious because opening night is just over a week away and students are still using their scripts as crutches (!!!), and then, driving home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6380,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions\/6380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}