Nothing But Curveballs

Pro tip: cars aren't suppose to make weird zombie whale noises

I used to always joke with friends who became aware of my improbably high incidence of bad luck that I feel like I walk around with an ontological “kick me” sign on my back.

It’s not that I never catch a break; it’s that it’s really rare.

Last week, I thought I’d caught one of those rare breaks.

As mentioned previously, Evie, my car, has been overheating again this month. I finally brought her into the shop last Thursday, and they had it for two whole days trying to figure out what was up. They identified and were able to repair a cracked connector in the coolant system that was causing the engine to overheat. When I saw that the repair was only $600 — I say “only” because in February I spent $1800 on getting the radiator fans replaced for a very similar cooling issue — I thought maybe I’d dodged a bullet.

Mind you, I wasn’t happy about the repair, but I was trying to look at the bright side.

It could have been so much worse, I thought with a smile. I’ll take it.

But then the tech called me and told me that while he was test driving it, he noticed that the car was making “whale sounds,” and he asked me if I’d ever heard anything like that. I said no. He said that he did some additional testing, and he thinks the purge valve went bad on the system. I told him I didn’t know what a purge valve was, so he explained (if I remember correctly) that it was a part of the fuel system that handles combustible vapors; rather than releasing them directly into the atmosphere, they’re stored in some kind of a charcoal filter, then released back into the engine for combustion when the computer decides it needs them.

I’ve had so many issues with the car, I’ve got a saved ChatGPT thread about only this, so I opened it up and told my pet clanker what was happening. It said the symptoms of a bad purge valve include things like rough idling (which I had been dealing with for months) and hard startups after filling the tank (not a problem I’d seen), among others. There was also a vehicle diagnostic code in the scanner about the fuel vacuum system that seemed to link up with this.

But it was 4:30PM on the Friday before a long weekend, and they weren’t going to get to it in time. I don’t have another means of transport, so I couldn’t wait. Chat told me the purge valve probably would be an inexpensive repair when the time came, so with a better-than-expected attitude, I crammed my 6’4” frame into the backseat of a Toyota Corolla masquerading as an Uber and headed to the shop to pick up the car.

The drive home was pleasant. I noticed immediately, via the Bluetooth OBD scanner I bought from Amazon during my road trip last year, that it was finally showing temperatures in a normal operating range. In fact, it was running great. I worked for much of the weekend with no noticeable problems. I started letting the purge valve issue slip from my mind.

But then, on Sunday, I stopped at Costco to fill up the tank, and when I tried to start the car up to leave, the ignition sequence didn’t complete. I tried again, and she started, but sputtered hard, then stalled. On the third try, I pumped the gas pedal when the sputtering started, and the engine roared to life.

Concerning, but there were no more problems after that.

Until today.

Now, let me back up a second.

I had a personal setback on Sunday that really sent me reeling. I’m not going to get into the specifics of it here, but suffice to say, it was an emotional gut punch. I took Memorial Day off and tried to get my mind right, but it didn’t work. And staring at the walls of my dark little cave of an apartment wasn’t helping, so I spent all day Tuesday out grinding with a twisted gut full of acid butterflies, hoping that doing Instacart orders and just trying to stay moving would help. The whole day, I felt like I was just a half step ahead of some monstrous, lumbering psychological beast, hot on my heels in its need to consume me. I knew I couldn’t sit at home or I’d drown in this whole new wave of grief and upset that was quickly moving towards despair. It was the kind of bad day that makes you act like an ornery bastard, but I got through it, and after a late dinner, I fell asleep in front of the television, re-watching old episodes of Fringe.

This morning, I was up fairly early, but I couldn’t get my rear end in gear. It felt like an emotional hangover. I could not stop procrastinating, and I had no energy to do anything. Something I learned fairly recently, as I was researching the particular eccentricities of my quirky neurotype, is that significant emotional overwhelm can leave a real lingering impact before you return to baseline. Often for several days. Looking back, I think I always experienced those after effects, but didn’t see them as a system out of balance that took a somewhat standard amount of time to reset. But the more I pay attention, the more I see the pattern.

That said, the bill collectors don’t care.

So this afternoon, I forced myself to go out and work. It was slow at first, but my first order was a bit of a unicorn — solid pay and a reasonable distance — and I thought to myself, “Nice. This will help build some momentum to carry me through the evening.” I punched in the customer’s address into the GPS and headed out.

Which is when I heard it.

The whale sound.

It was, in my opinion, less like a whale, and more like the gasping of some Lovecraftian thing. Maybe like a zombie whale, or some other guttural-sounding, undead thing, just couldn’t catch its breath while hanging on to the rear driver’s side door.

And it didn’t stop. It just kept on repeating, this big, loud, wheezing inhalation, like the car itself was suffocating horrifically on a planet without atmosphere.

While I was listening to the ungodly moaning, I hit my first stoplight of the trip. That’s when the whole car started convulsing. I shifted into neutral and fed it some gas, afraid it was going to stall in the middle of a busy intersection. It helped a little, but only if I didn’t let up.

I looked at my GPS. Still 6.7 miles to go.

“GAAAAAASP!”

“Shit.” I spat.

“GAAAAAAAAAAEEEWSP!”

I nursed her down the road, stoplight to stoplight. Evening rush hour traffic was beginning to clog the roads like poorly-maintained arteries. The route was all surface streets. No highways. Too many traffic lights. The car seemed to be running better on stretches when I could keep the speed above 40MPH, but that awful sound never stopped, every few seconds.

“MNGGGAAAAAASP!”

Finally, I arrived at the customer’s house. I parked Evie under a shade tree, just in case she didn’t want to start back up, crossed my fingers, and shut off the engine.

“GNNNNGGGAAAAASP!”

Ok. I thought. It’s still doing this even with the engine off, which means it’s got to be a gas tank pressure issue.

I walked to the back. My fuel port does not have a gas cap, just a little retractable metal shutter that seals the filler hole that leads to the tank. It’s spring-loaded, and moves out of the way when you insert a gas pump, then pops back into place when you remove the nozzle. I decided to try opening it with my finger.

“MMMNGGGAGAAAASSSPP!”

The sound came immediately as I touched the shutter, and it was louder and sharper outside the car than it was when I was driving. I jumped back like a tarantula had come lunging out at my face. I laughed at myself for being startled, and tried it again.

“NNNGaaaassspppppppssssss.”

I flinched this time too, but the sound quickly tapered off to a small hiss, then stopped.

I completed my delivery, got back in, started her up. Worked on the first try. No rough idle, no convulsing, no gasping.

I opened my Ford Fusion Q&A chat and updated the info.

“The system may literally be pulling abnormal vacuum on the tank and EVAP lines,” Chat said, “and when you disturbed the filler neck, you temporarily relieved or changed the condition.”

“Important nuance,” the bot continued. “You did not ‘fix’ it. But you may have temporarily reset the pressure state the car was freaking out about.”

I can’t afford not to get this fixed, I thought. It’s not safe driving it like this.

I switched over to text messaging, and shot a note to my mechanic, requesting the promised estimate.

A few minutes later, he sent it back.

EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS.

They have to replace all the EVAP lines. AND, they can’t do it until Friday.

And of course, it means another $1500 in repairs, total, for the second time in 3 months. Over $3K, just since February.

This is why I hate buying used cars.

Bottom line: I’m not willing to risk driving more than necessary until this is fixed, but that means I’ll have lost at least 4 work days to car repairs and repair-related issues in the past week. That’s enough lost income to cover roughly half the bill. It stinks on ice. It’s busy tonight. I forgot to to turn off my app, and it keeps buzzing to let me know about all the new orders coming in.

So instead, here I am, at the time when I’d normally be working, writing this.

Venting this, if I’m being honest. Because what else can you do?

That said, it’s a great time to take this moment to thank those of you who made financial contributions in support of my work last week, whether directly or through subscriptions. Every single dollar helps at a time like this.

I know I’m not operating at 100% yet. I’m probably not even at 80%. To be honest, I had really hoped I’d have made more progress by now getting out of the fugue this whole separation and divorce has dropped on me. It seems like every single time I start to feel like I’m getting real traction, some new giant karmic cartoon hammer appears and bonks me right back into the pit, and I’m left having to climb out again.

Which is why those of you who helped lift this burden might not understand what a big deal it is. Huge. Yuge even.

Again, I can’t thank you enough.

I don’t imagine life will stop throwing curveballs. Someday soon, I hope I can improve my batting average.

---

If you liked this essay, please consider subscribing—or send a tip (Venmo/Paypal/Stripe) to support this and future pieces like it.