Lessons Learned while Driving, or Not Driving, as the Case May Be

Labor Day weekend did not begin as planned, which threw a wrench into subsequent weekend events, and left me both exhausted and drained when I returned to Chicago on Monday. It’s a wonder I even planned to leave the city at all this weekend, considering that jazz fest was happening. Family, however, is even more important to me than live jazz; plus, I felt an urgency to get out of town for a few days. After work on Friday, I rushed home, packed up my car with all my laundry and a few other things, put my key in the ignition and my car into drive and tried—-to—-go. But my car decided not to move. Stubborn and bull-headed, I managed to drive it to the other side of the road, but all the while I felt as though it were dragging something terribly heavy. Had my car been booted and I didn’t even realize it? You can't actually drag a boot, right?

With my car’s rear hanging precariously in the way of taxi drivers (I couldn’t get it any closer to the curb), I stepped out and took a look. Around the car, under the car. Nothing there. Then I noticed a chalky-looking streak marking the path from where my back left tire had been on the other side of the road, to where it now sat. Oh man, I’d drug at least one of my back tires clear across the road. I cringed at the thought of a bald spot. What in the world was going on here?

After a few seconds of staring at the tire with "WTF?" stamped on my forehead, I assumed, correctly, that somehow the emergency brake had gone on, even though I never use it. I climbed back into my car and messed around with it, putting it on, and taking it off until—-wa-la!—-it let go. "Home free!" I thought. But then it occurred to me that if the emergency brake had gone on all of its own accord before, it might do it again. So I played with the brake a little more to make sure it was really, truly unstuck. It wasn’t. It got stuck again and this time, no amount of pulling the lever was going to release it. So, I dialed AAA for a tow, and called my mom to tell her I didn’t know when I’d be able to get home.

I immediately scrambled to unload everything I'd just loaded into my car before the tow truck arrived, since I had no idea how long my car might sit in a shop. When Alfonso arrived (that was the name of my tow truck driver), he was convinced that my brakes were simply frozen because I don’t drive my car enough, so he attempted to roll the car back and forth to unstick them. All this served to do, however, (as I was later dismayed to find out), was bend my brake drum and cylinder (which I may already have done trying to drive my car across the road). Soon he was towing my front-wheel-drive car from the back (since the back tires wouldn’t move), with the seat belt firmly holding the steering wheel in place.

On the way to the mechanic, Alfonso gave me a tutorial in Chicago’s grid system. He made me draw a plus-sign on the back of his AAA pad and mark off State and Madison, then he had me mark some other major streets (like North Ave.) and told me the corresponding block numbers of each. Now, I’ve had people tell me about the grid system before, but no one has ever actually showed me and all I ever really wanted was an explanation of the diagonal streets, and I got that, too.

All the while, Alfonso (can you tell I enjoy his name?) told me that he’d have me out of town by 8 pm. That was getting pretty late, since that wouldn’t put me into T-town until 1 am EST, but I just wanted to get my car fixed. In hindsight, it probably would have been better if I’d just gone home Saturday, but I just needed to get out of Chicago. Sometimes, you just do.

A few hours later, and several hundred dollars lighter, my car was fixed. I'd had a mini-heart attack at the price, but was happy that I could drive my car safely, and that I hadn’t been going 80 on the highway when my emergency brake decided to kick in, unexpectedly. And while Saturday may not have gone according to plan, and I may have been in the most wretched mood of my entire life that day (a result of sleep deprivation, accruing stress and, possibly, Friday's full moon), the last weekend of summer, as with the season as a whole, was not a total bust. After all, I got to see a lot of people I love. I did, however, wind up driving west on the toll road on Monday still feeling the shadow of Saturday and wishing I'd had a few more days of vacation to shake it off.

Thank God long drives tend to be therapeutic for me. I have to admit that by the time I rolled into the city, the familiar skyline sent electricity through me, giving me goosebumps (as beautiful things often do), and lifting my spirits. I remembered that one year before, on Labor Day, I'd timidly driven into town, terrified of the traffic and the distinct possibility of getting lost. My car loaded with belongings, I'd carefully made my way to the home of the roommates I'd met through Craigslist and prepared to start an internship I'd landed two weeks before. This Labor Day, I could see the contrast of my two selves as clearly as day and night. I am still as thrilled by the city as I was the first time I drove in from the Skyway, but I am far less intimidated. I felt such a rush as I merged into city traffic on Monday, turning up my music, aggressively weaving in and out of traffic, and cruising along the familiar highway until I was soon parked on the street below my apartment. There is no denying that I am not the same girl I was when I first came to the city, and that thought makes me smile again as I write this.