Owww . . . .

So we’ve known for some time the clutch on the car was getting ready to go out.  So I’d intended to take it to the shop last Saturday for a clutch replacement . . . but that was before I got sick.  So I was intending to take it in this Saturday . . . .

So I went out about 8:30 tonight, to pick up T from a track meet at a high school in far north Austin.  Four blocks before I got to the school, something went “clank” and started rattling, like a piece of metal was thrashing around inside a housing someplace.  I managed to coast another two blocks before I had to pull off because if I didn’t, when the car stopped I was going to be stuck in the roadway with no way to move it onto the shoulder because of the guard rails.

Now mind, I hadn’t expected this to be more than a short trip, so I hadn’t put on shoes—which meant that I was now faced with having to walk barefoot in the roadway (no shoulder, no sidewalks) up to the school to find T.  Fortunately, she was standing at the gate when I walked up, so I used her (borrowed) cell phone to call AAA for a wrecker.  Now I had to walk back to the car, barefoot, in the roadway.  Isn’t that special?

We waited 45 minutes before the wrecker arrived, less than the hour’s wait AAA had told us to expect.  The driver hooked us up and drove us and the car to my mechanic’s place, where he untied and let us off.

So now it’s ten at night, and T and I are going to have to walk home.  I’m still barefoot.

We walked the twenty-five blocks home, over a combination of gravel sidewalks, cement sidewalks, pebbles, and rough asphalt.  By the time we reached home, I was able to do little more than hobble.  By now, the immediate pain’s backed off a little, but my knees and ankles are going to be on fire in the morning, from having to walk that much with no arch support and no protection from all those hard surfaces.

Moses programmed free-form on the drug-crazed radio.  Fnord.