Car Ride

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Today, my older brother flew in from Paris, to spend a week back here in Senegal. Two of my brothers and sister, took the family Benz (has the wear and tear that face most cars here) to pick him up. The airport is only a couple of miles from the house and pretty much on the same road, so one would think, the trip would go off without any problems.

As we were driving there, we hit a large bump (not uncommon) and heard a clank. I’ve never known a whole lot about cars, other than the things you probably shouldn’t do with them , but this sound did sound good.

Apparently, the transmission dropped and we were stuck in just one gear. For the next couple of miles to the airport, we were going about 20 mph as everyone else was going about 60 mph. On top of that, I thought the car was gonna just fall apart every time the accelerator was pressed.

Once we got to the airport, we ran into another problem. Since the car was stuck in gears, we would not be able to back out of a spot. This made for an interesting and heated, yet humorously funny confrontation with the parking attendants. If my hand weren’t in a cast at the moment, id probably would say more about it, but typing with one finger isn’t fun.

As it turned out, after waiting at the airport for about an hour, my brother had taken a cab home. Also, I saw one of my PC doctors (the one I saw the night I broke my hand), so I felt alittle jinxed about getting another injury tonight.

Fortunately, the ride home only provided laughter amongst us, as exhaust poured out from the tailpipe as the engine roared.