The Saturn, the car with good gas mileage, has started losing coolant. I’ve had to top it off a few times in recent weeks. The problem is, I don’t know how fast it’s losing coolant–and this is complicated by the fact that the design of this vehicle does not include direct access to the radiator, but only to the overflow tank, which is under pressure when the vehicle is hot. Thus I cannot easily determine whether there is air in the radiator trying to get out.
The problem was severe last night, as the car started overheating en route to the fulfillment of an interstate errand, and the one running the errand (not I) had to return to swap for the less-efficient truck. This creates uncertainty, since on the one hand I had topped off the tank Saturday afternoon, but on the other hand I do not know that there was no air in the radiator and I do know that there was extensive driving done Saturday night and Sunday morning, which could have depleted the reserve.
Right now someone is driving the vehicle around locally to see whether the added coolant is sufficient; when the car returns, I will have to let it cool and then open up the overflow tank to check the level.
All of this is because it is Monday, and part of the Monday workload includes taking my mother-in-law shopping.
It has also been a strange Monday, as I was informed sometime late yesterday that one of my sons would need to be seen by a doctor today, so (after going back to bed after bus riders were organized) I forced myself out of bed once the office was open and made a call to get an appointment. The first available appointment was at crack of dawn tomorrow–actually, eight in the morning, but that’s outrageously early by my standards–and so he did not go today. However, I had by then forced myself into wakefulness, and so attempted to get started on my day–an effort which took longer than I would have preferred, and then was interrupted several times once the hurdles were crossed.
At the moment, then, I am trying to get as much of this work done as I am able while awaiting the return of the car so I can figure out what I’m doing for dinner and what I’m doing about the car. Once those matters are settled, I will be dealing with my mother-in-law with whichever vehicle is guessed to be the better choice, and returning to finish whatever was left undone.
So maybe I do know what I’m doing; I just don’t know that I know.
–M. J. Young
