July 23, 2009

Things are so hectic we lost track of the days. By the time 8pm rolls around we drop into bed.


Dale found someone to move the 1930 Buick. The truck came, but they have the main road closed due to the sidewalk collapse on the next street (the one the sewer contractor is fixing instead of hooking the house up to the sewer). We had to go pick up the woman truck driver in town. She parked the huge 84' car carrier next to the Westborough fire station and rode back with us. We had to change the tire on the Buick when we took it off the jacks and then we put a rope around the bumper and pulled it out of the garage. Very scary because we didn't know if the brakes still worked and it is a slight incline. But they held. Then we had to back it down the very long, very steep driveway and out into the road. My uncle Jim and I stopped traffic on route 135 while my brother moved the van in front of the car. He and the truck driver, Lori, put a short rope around Buick's axle or bumper and hooked it to the trailer hitch on the van. My uncle and I had trouble getting people to stop on the busy Route 135. Seems people don't want to stop when someone waves the back of a yellow "yard sale" sign at them. It was harrowing. When the rope was hooked up there was about eight feet of clearance.

Lori and my Uncle Jim jumped into the Buick and my brother and I jumped into the van and towed the car at 15mph down Route 135 to Church street and out onto West Main where we had to negotiate the manic rotary where no one stops. Terrifying. Under the best of circumstances, only native residents of Massachusetts can brave the rotaries without suffering Post Traumatic Shock Disorder after. And each time we had to apply brakes, with only eight feet between us, my heart rate accelerated to 175 beats per minute. When we sped up again there would be a series of thump, thump, thump.

"They're crashing into us, they're crashing into us," I'd scream.

My brother would holler, "No, no, it is the rope jerking them along." Oh, that is so much better. Jerking the bumper off the car would be fine. I hung out the window, flailing my arms so the maniac New England drivers wouldn't smack into us like bumper cars at the amusement park as we went around the rotary.

We pulled in to the fire station and all the firemen came out and told us to move the car up just a little so they could get out if they got a call. Then they stood around and talked and examined the car while the Lori rearranged the Ferrari she already had in the car carrier and made room for the Buick. Because the Buick wasn't running, she had to use a come-along and the firemen and my brother and uncle and I all pushed the car up onto the rear gate of the truck and then up onto the carrier until she could reach it with the come-along.

The whole thing took about 2.5 hours, and then we left and came back in time to run three more loads to the dump.


Yikes.


I'm so tired I might go to be at 7pm.


Oh wait, the neighbor just came over with a blender and tequila.