Love Hate!

I hate my van! But I love my van too. I know that sounds weird and seems a contradiction and it IS weird but its true I have a love hate relationship with my vehicle. I hate to depend on the piece of crap because its not dependable. The vehicle plays games on us and if I had any kind or better alternative I would dump the beast in an instant.
This morning I had an appointment with the wheelchair shop to have some tweaking done on my new, getting old fast, Quantum. I was going to drive in by myself but I was afraid that transferring into the drivers seat of the van from my chair then transferring back when I got to the shop would result in my de-pantsing; loosing my pants on my transferring back into my chair from the drivers seat see to happen to me now more and more as my transfers become worse and worse. So, I woke Dianne up to drive me into Magic Rest.

I had stayed up too late last night watching the season finale of Gray’s A. So I was running late this morning. I had an eleven o clock appointment an I was just finishing my pants on at 10:30 and Dianne was just getting going to but had gone out to the van and started the vehicle; at a quarter 11:00 she told me to go and get into the van so we would be ready to go as soon as she finished which would be minutes. I knew something was wrong, desperately wrong when I got onto the wheelchair lift and pushed the toggle and the motor immediately died. I road the lift up to the van anyway figuring I would be able to get down if the van would not start—the lift being a ‘gravity’ down lift and sure enough when Dianne did come out to the van and try to start the engine there was no juice. I HATE THIS VAN THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS. I was bout ready to call it a day right then and there but there was a giant Qwest truck running round the neighborhood for one reason or another and Di flagged the driver down and with in five mi nutes the guy was negotiating the truck into position to give us a jump.

The driver, lets call him Juan, a Hispanic gentleman with some English speaking challenges and kept looking at us like “what are these gringos up do”. He wore wrap round sun glasses, a salt and pepper beard and a cool construction helmet. He was slow moving but definite, methodically deliberate. He was not going to be rushed and if we expected his help it would be on his grounds. Juan did a marvelous job and with in minutes we were jumped and on the road. I would never have flagged down a truck like Dianne I am still amazed that we pulled this off. Anyway we got to the appointment and Brent treated us great and got things tweaked on the chair and back on the road. Dianne had stayed in the van with the engine running so as not to have to ask for a second jump.

The van acted great for the rest of our trip, we stopped for lunch at our favorite restaurant and later stopped at the van conversion shop where we had the lift put into the van. We have checked everything else we had to rule out the lift and it’s electrical circuitry as well. The boys there spent a good hour checking things out and found nothing, as I knew they would, I was thrilled we got home. I loved my van for bringing us home, as I do each time the vehicle gets us back home safe…it just those time it just decides to sit there and do nothing but mock me and all those time I just hate it and I would roll away from it in a second if I could…