a personal style blog by Lauren Pfieffer

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Story Time!

So I've been driving a stick shift, red, 2006 VW beetle since I was 16. I got it for my 16th birthday, learned how to drive on it, and even took my drivers test with it (and admittedly failed the first time).

I've known since I was a little girl that I wanted to drive a bug, and just owning one has made me realize that I never want to drive another car. It's perfect for me. Unfortunately, along with my dream car comes a lot of problems. VWs aren't very well made and are always having electrical problems.

My little buggie boo has been in need of a new catalytic converter (don't ask me what this is, I have no clue) for about half the summer now. It hardly goes above 20 mph and has the hardest time even getting up to that. It's jerky and constantly sputtering, and in the last few weeks it's even stalled out in the middle of the rode a few times.

So, my parents told me not to drive it until we get the problem fixed and it's been killing me not to take my baby out, moon roof down, music blaring in the summer time. Yesterday both of my parents were gone and I really wanted to take outfit photos. Since neither of them were home, I couldn't use one of their cars.

I thought that maybe since my bug had been sitting a few weeks, that it would be okay to drive--just the little distance to the place where I take my pictures. The car of course sputtered and rumbled on the way there, but made it just fine. It was the way back, however, that ended in disaster.

I was going up a hugely busy hill in my town. It's a main road, and everyone uses it. I was about half way up and I knew my car wasn't going to make it. I put my emergency break on as I started rolling back down the hill, cars honking at me; myself hard core panicking.

I tried a few times starting the car over (what's worked in the past) but to no avail the car just rolled back farther, almost hitting the car behind me. I had traffic completely backed up on this hill, both ways, in quite a mess.

A nice man pulled off to the side of the road though and offered to roll my car backwards down the hill, out of the way of traffic. So there I sat at the side of a busy road, in a ditch, everyone staring at me, completely upset at myself and my stubborn headed stupidity.

I ended up calling my parents and they got a tow truck set up that wouldn't come for two hours so we would have to wait for them. I was so upset because I was suppose to go out to eat and to the festival with Matt! Not to mention my mom was so ticked at me... All of a sudden, a nice man and woman pulled over and told me they could help. They got my car out of the ditch, up the hill (I have no clue how), and back to my house. Seriously, a miracle.

We called the tow truck and canceled, and I was crying in thankfulness to these two strangers who helped me get out of the messy predicament I had caused. I offered to pay them for their help, but the kind souls just said for me to pay forward the kindness to someone else who needed it. What awesome people.

So here is the story of my stupidity. I've learned my lesson and it was certainty a...learning experience. God knows I'll make lots of similar mistakes this coming year, but hopefully these mistakes won't get me stranded on the side of the road

With much love, Lauren.
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9 comments

Anonymous said...

One thing I love about people is that when you're in trouble, at least one or two will help you.It really is the sweetest thing. Our car got stuck in the snow last winter and a couple people came running from their houses on a freezing January day with shovels and dug us out.

Lily Fang said...

I'm sorry about your experience! If it makes you feel better, I love your blog, photos and style! Would you like to follow each other to stay in touch? Let me know!

Alice, Pretty Confused said...

Kind strangers are the best, I seriously think the world would be a better place if more people were like this. So glad everything worked out for you xo

katie said...

Yikes, cars problems are the worst! Winter time is always such a awful time up here because you can count on your car breaking down at some point. :P That's amazing that such sweet people helped you, it sounds like it was a scary situation on that hill with you being stuck and rolling backwards!


I'll have to disagree with you on the VW not being well-made thing though! I've had a few VWs over the years and hands down, they are some of the most durable cars ever! (I will admit, they were all older models, most were 1990s models so I don't know how the newer models are, but all still had every original part and drove forever. I ended up with 260,000 miles on the orignial transmission on my first one before I started have trouble with second gear.)

Lauren said...

Hahahaha that reminds me of the time I got my car stuck in the snow! All because I pulled over to the side of the road to let a firetruck by. Gosh it was the most embarrassing thing in the whole world!

Katie Burry said...

Aw!! What nice people! Stories like that are always so nice to hear!

Also, I'm glad everything worked out in the end! That must have been so scary! O.O

Emily said...

Awh, that is such a good story! A lot of people in Iowa are like that, there's constantly people helping others, anonomously! I guess it's a Midwest thing:)

But I'm glad you're okay, that must've been terrifying!

And you should definitely tell more stories:)

<3

Et tu, tutu? said...

My car has been having problems too. It's the worst! It still drives but it keeps sputtering and sometimes will stall in the middle of the road too. In two weeks I have to drive it the 4-1/2 hours to university and I'm reeeeeeally hoping it makes it, haha.

-Lindsey
Et tu, tutu?

Teddi said...

oh, i've been there stranded with car trouble a few times in my life. it's never fun.

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