Today she wound up deep in a snowy ditch way out in Blackie.  Where’s Blackie? Exactly.  Way out in the middle of nowhere, and chances are you’ve never heard of it.  Today was the last day before Christmas break and I was guest teaching for my absolute most favourite first grade class of all time out there.  I say last day before Christmas, but it was my last day guest teaching as well, because I start teaching kindergarten on a full-time contract after the break. *squeal* What?! Yes, I’ll get to that in a minute.

So I had probably only gotten around 5 minutes from school when I took a corner wrong and my back-end swung around and went butt-first into a very deep ditch to the side of the road.  My camera phone pictures from within the warmth of the tow truck doesn’t quite do this situation justice — you should’ve seen it from the other side. (I was too cold to get out and go back around it from the driver’s side door.)  My first thought was that I wasn’t hurt at all; I was driving slower than a grandma and was trying to be really careful at that corner already.  My second thought was absolute panic because I was literally out in the middle of nowhere in -40 (with windchill) on an angle so steep in the ditch that my gas tank went from being half full to empty, prompting the gas light and bell to go off.  I called Lucas who works in the middle of downtown Calgary, around 60km away, in tears and as he was calming me down (he is SO good at keeping a level head when things go wrong) the grandmother of one of the students from my first grade class that day drove up in her big truck to make sure I was okay.  She offered to drive me to the next little town 5 minutes away in High River.  High River is a town you might’ve actually heard of. High River actually has services, unlike Blackie which doesn’t even have a gas station, lol. Anyway, as she’s driving me to High River (thank goodness for her truck’s heated seats, what a godsend.) Lucas arranged a towing service available in High River.   I was dropped off somewhere warm to wait for the tow truck and all went well — I managed to get a crochet project in my bag done while I waited, and the Neon, once pulled out, appeared to be in excellent shape considering the situation.  I think she’ll be back to 100% once we get an alignment; I could definitely tell it was way off trying to get home afterwards.

This Neon has seen and done it all, from driving what felt like halfway across the world from Indiana to Calgary nearly three years ago, to taking the most gorgeous scenic routes to British Columbia through the Canadian Rockies.  It was broken into by would-be car thieves and survived, and it’s regularly abused by massive amounts of dog hair from our family trips and has endured having a block heater installed to keep it toasty in the coldest parts of a Calgarian winter.  She sure takes a beating… and continues to be my baby.  For those of you that have known me well since junior high, you know how obsessive I am about my Neon.

Want to hear the funniest part of the ditch situation?  As the tow truck driver and I were sitting in the cab of the truck filling out paperwork and processing the payment, a man in a red pickup pulled up alongside and motioned for the driver to roll down his window.  He leaned out and looked at me and said, “Did you just have your car towed out of that ditch?” I nodded and he patted the side of his truck saying, “See this truck?  I’m on my way home from picking it up at the body shop — I had to take it in after I hit that very same ditch last week.”  … so apparently I am not alone.

Anyway, on to positive news — I got a teaching contract! Last week I was hired by a private school in downtown Calgary who had an open kindergarten teacher position.  I start on January 5th after the holiday break.  I am so excited!  I’m going in over break to set up my classroom and have been busy with preparations and lessons.  I’ll have a morning and afternoon kindergarten class, the morning class having 11 kids and the afternoon session having 12.  The contract is for the rest of the school year and then will roll over into next school year, so I am set!  The schedule aligns well with Lucas’ schedule since he already works downtown, so that means we can carpool together/train down and back together.  It’s about time, eh? :)

yesterday, as i was passing this point i noticed a young lady pulled over on the left shoulder with her hazards on. i slowed and pulled onto the opposite shoulder and noted that she had a flat tire, poor thing. it’s -60F outside, she’s stopped in the middle of a wind-through, and looks pretty scared that she’ll either get clipped by a semi-truck if she stays in the car where it’s warm, or get frostbite trying to change the tire on her own (assuming she even knows how, right?).

i flip on my hazards and pull off the shoulder to a safe distance, and hop out of the car. she sees me and a smile of relief washes over her face.

i smiled, and waved back, took the photo of the river/mountain view i’ve been wanting to take, and carried on my way.

i hope someone came along and helped her!

Sufficive to say, they have not increased their level of respect with us…

We’ve been annoyed by some minor brake squealing most of the summer, and knew we would eventually need to install a block-heater to keep the Neon’s powerful engine from shattering during our sub-Kelvinesque winters, so we asked Dodge to go ahead and prepare an estimate on that work while they were performing the inspection.

The call comes back later in the day with bad news: the Neon’s Daytime Running Lights module is broken; as this is a requirement in Alberta, it needs to be replaced – along with every other module in the dashboard? – bringing our work estimate up to $1500+. I’m skeptical that DRL is an actual Alberta Infrastructure requirement, so I tell Dodge to put a hold on everything while I do some research. A quick call to AI confirms Dodge’s claim, so I decide to find a cheaper replacement method – perhaps I can find the required parts used or after-market. Dodge is expectedly against the idea, but with some prodding agrees to install a part that I bring in on my own – it will take longer (ie. cost more in labour $) and they don’t actually expect it will work, which will mean us having to go their route eventually and paying for everything twice. Friendly folk, aren’t they?

The part is a ‘cluster’ of all the modules, priced at $650 OEM. A few phone calls around local part stores and wrecking yards, and I learn that an after-market DRL kit is available for $30! The consensus is that it’s a bitch to install, but it’ll pass inspection. I swing by Dodge to pick up the Neon so that I can go fetch this Excalibur’s Sword of midday luminescent engineering, and (surprise!) their Technician tells me that he won’t install this particular after-market item, because it doesn’t match the required electrical specs, and he doesn’t want to screw something up and jeopardize our warranty.*

* during this whole process it was learned that the SuperDuperExtendedWarranty that Lesley was sold as part of her trade-in deal is actually only a power-train warranty, and completely unaffected by electrical work of this nature.

I was half-expecting something like this from them, so I’d made some calls to local repair shops and found one that could install inspection-worthy DRL on the Neon for $250 or less after labour and taxes. If Dodge didn’t want to install DRL on the Neon for less than $800, they weren’t going to be doing any of the work on it and could snack on a net profit of $0.

But Dodge is a wily beast, and had already completely installed the block-heater and begun work on the brakes (they were dirty! the brakes, I mean… well Dodge, too I guess. Anyway…) I guess they decided to get in as much of the work as possible once they found out I was calling other mechanics for opinions. We were furious, but decided (probably against our better judgement) to let that go, giving them the benefit of the doubt – after all, English was not the Technician’s first language, and our Rep had mentioned that they have ongoing issues with him and misunderstandings of presumably similar nature.

Skip ahead. The Neon has been to our local mechanic, the DRL are installed and functioning, the invoice was exactly as quoted, and to top it off the staff were *gasp* friendly! We return the Neon to Dodge so that they can finish the initial inspection and give us our paperwork. Shockingly, they call later in the day to inform us that the installation from our local mechanic is not to specification – it seems our DRL are installed using the fog lamps, but they are supposed to use the turn signals? I asked our Rep to have the Technician bring her the appropriate documentation to back up this claim, and I would have her fax it to me as proof.

While she scurried off, I made a call to AI again and had someone there read me the relevant passages from the official Methods & Standards book (which apparently, he’s not allowed to send me copies of directly). The requirements are that the DRL be (i) on the front of the vehicle; (2) using white or amber lights; and (3) operate automatically whenever the motor of the vehicle is in operation – all criteria that our local mechanic has fulfilled dutifully.

The phone rings. I can see it’s Dodge. I prepare myself to unleash unholy fury on the poor soul on the other end of the line. I actually yelled “It’s on!” to the rest of the office (who have been following this little drama from start to finish, whether they wanted to or not) and pumped my fist a few times before picking up the receiver.

Anti-climatically, Dodge was calling to concede victory to my perserverence and research skills. The Neon was ready to be picked up, with full certification, at no further charge.

Clearly we will not be taking any of our future work to Dodge directly unless there is no other option. We’re also taking the boys at Franklin Auto some cookies and beer for their help.