I've been noticing lately, especially on the really cold days, that whenever I drive my car, it feels bouncy. The faster I go, the bouncier it gets...kind of like a cross between riding a bull and driving over a field of bowling balls. I'm theorizing that maybe something happens to the pressure in the tires when the temperature drops below freezing, so they turn into blocks of rubberized ice.
The reason why I'm not rushing off to see my mechanic, however, is because a couple of years ago, again during the cold weather, a similar thing happened. But along with the bouncing, whenever I stepped on the brakes, the car jerked. So before I ended up with a combination of whiplash and motion sickness, I decided to get the car checked out.
Unfortunately, that meant I had to clean it out first, which was a major project. That's because on any given day, there usually is enough dog fur in my car to easily stuff a mattress. Add to that a gazillion nose prints and splotches of dried-up dog drool all over the windows, and it's like being sentenced to several hours of hard labor.
There's also always the aromatic scent of unbathed dogs permeating my car's upholstery, which usually requires spraying it with enough air freshener to single handedly destroy the ozone layer.
Anyway, I managed to get my car looking and smelling fairly decent back then, but the floors still were covered with dirt, gravel and fur. Tired, I didn’t feel like dragging my vacuum cleaner all the way out to the garage, so I left the floors the way they were. I figured I always could save the dirt and gravel for later, and sprinkle it on the ice in my driveway.
When I brought the car to the repair shop, a mechanic immediately started to fire questions at me about my car's alleged bouncing.
“Is it more of a vibration or a bounce?” he asked.
“Definitely a bounce,” I said.
“Do your brakes pulsate when you step on them?”
I wasn’t even certain what pulsating brakes would feel like. “No, it’s more of a jerk than a pulse.”
“Does your car pull to either the left or the right?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
“Have you hit any pot holes or frost heaves lately?”
“Yes, about 10,000 of each.”
“I’ll take the car for a test drive,” he said.
I nearly laughed when he first carefully laid a paper mat on the floor of my car to keep it clean. He’d have been better off wrapping it around his feet to protect them from getting covered with dirt and gravel and enough fur to make him look as if he were wearing fuzzy slippers.
Five minutes later, he returned from the test drive. “It feels fine to me,” he said, shrugging.
I stared at him as if he’d just been beamed down from another galaxy. “You honestly didn’t feel any bouncing or jerking?”
He shook his head. “The car pulled to the right just a little, but that was about it.”
“And the brakes?”
“They didn’t pulsate...or jerk...at all.”
I began to think the only explanation was I had developed some sort of rare neurological disorder.
“But I’ll check your brakes and tires, just to be safe,” he added.
Both turned out to be fine. When I told him I couldn't believe he hadn't found anything wrong with the car, he decided to rotate the tires and do an alignment...which I suspected was solely out of desperation to shut me up and get rid of me.
To be honest, I thought my car felt even bouncier during the drive home. But seeing everything had checked out just fine, I decided to ignore the bouncing and learn to live with it.
And that's exactly what I'm going to do again this time, especially since my car was inspected only a little over two months ago.
However, I'm thinking that maybe I should buy a new bra that doesn’t have stretch straps...
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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
