Thursday, February 11, 2010

Torture by Warning Buzzer

The day before yesterday I was near Chicago, and parked for the night. I decided to run the truck for an hour or so just to make sure the batteries didn't die during the night. About 20 seconds after I turned the truck on, the message panel told me that the coolant was dangerously low, and the warning buzzer came on. Obviously I was concerned. I had just checked the coolant at my last fuel stop a couple of hours before, and it was full. Thinking I had sprung a leak, I popped the hood open, jumped out of the truck and checked it again. The level had dropped a little, but it was still pretty much full. I waited for a couple of agonizing minutes for the truck to figure out there was no dire situation here and shut the buzzer off, but it didn't. Now, you have to understand that this is quite possibly the most horrible, loudest buzzer you have ever heard. Kind of like in the movies, when a building is under a bomb threat and there are all these flashing red lights and the emergency buzzer is blaring as people rush from the building before it blows. Picture that, only there is no bomb. Nothing (hopefully) is going to blow. And it won't shut off. It's incessant. So I decide I will top up the coolant and that should turn the buzzer off. Only problem is, there are only two service stations there and neither of them carries the red coolant, which is of course, what I use. So I message my company and ask them if they have another truck coming by, can he please bring me some? Why, yes, of course. He'll be there in the morning. During the night I had to wake up and run the truck a few times because it was very cold and I didn't want the poor thing to freeze up and die, so during this time the buzzer was continually blaring away. I shut the truck off right in the nick of time, just before the brink of insanity.
In the morning, the other driver came by and topped up my coolant for me, bid me a good day and continued on his way. Problem solved. Or not. The buzzer was still on. Frustrated, I decided to try resetting the message system by cycling the key into the on position several times in quick succession. It didn't work. I messaged the shop. They asked me to just deal until I got back to the shop in a day or two. I told them I cannot last a day or two. I will be in psychiatric care before then. They said to stop by a shop en route and have it checked. But first I had to make three stops around Chicago, which took the better part of the day. So I kept hitting the ESC button on the truck's computer, which gave me exactly 10 seconds of silence before the buzzer came back on. ALL DAY. Then I struck pay dirt. Here are the messages that went back and forth between me and the shop via satellite computer.

SHOP: Can you take it to the Volvo shop in Aurora, IL?
Lizzy: No, that is way out of route. Any other shops?
SHOP: How's Morris, IL?
Lizzy (after a long pause): Sorry, I am not trying to ignore you, it's just that I am trying to hit the ESC button, type messages to you and drive in a snowstorm. You are gonna have to wait till I get to Alsip. But I NEED to find a shop. I am seriously going to have to put my earbuds in and crank my music to survive this and keep my sanity!!
SHOP: Ok, well let us know if any of the shops we mentioned is on your route so we can call in that you are coming.
Lizzy (from the shop in Alsip, IL, where I picked up an empty trailer): Dear shop, being the resourceful woman that I am, I have solved the buzzer problem by batting my eyelashes a few times and pulling the 'dumb blonde' on the nearest mechanic and having him unplug the buzzer. So I am fine now till such a time as I get back to our shop. No rush. Sincerely, Lizzy.
SHOP: Nice!!! We should send you out for blown turbos and other ridiculously expensive repairs. You could save us a lot of money!! Have a safe trip! :)

And so my two days of torture was at an end, thanks to my superior survival skills. Being female has it's benefits!!

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