Friday, November 9, 2018

Oil Change, circa 2014

My dad has always changed the oil in his cars. It’s one of his obsessions.

“Every 3000 miles, Susan. You need to get that oil out!” he’d scold after I moved away from home. “I’m telling you!”

He still changes his own oil. He owns a 1992 Toyota Corolla and a 2005 Hyundai Sante Fe. In March 2014, he had set up the equipment in the garage to change the oil in the Toyota. This involves several bricks that elevate a wooden plank. He backs the car onto the wooden plank to elevate it so he can get under the car to open the oil pan. (I’m questioning the direction of the car in this situation. Wouldn’t you need the front of the car elevated because that’s where the oilpan is? Seems like he used to drive the car onto the bricks so the engine would be elevated, but that’s not what happened in this situation. And maybe dementia is the reason for this.) It involves a helper: his trusty wife.

One evening, I got a text from my sister: “Don’t call them. Something happened. I’ll call you later.”

Very strange.

When she called she explained that my dad had backed the car up most of the way onto the bricks but wanted to correct the car’s position on the bricks. Instead of changing gears, he hit the gas with the car still in reverse, drove over the bricks, and through the garage wall into the basement stairwell on the other side of the wall. A little more gas and the car would have gone down the stairs backwards.

I don’t know what happened then. I never got the details. I don’t want to know. He was able to “drive” the car out of the stairwell. The car wasn’t hurt, nor was he. But I’m sure his pride was hurt no matter how much he may have blamed mom for not telling him how close he was or something to deflect guilt from himself.

In the end, the car was fine, the oil was changed, the wall was fixed, and life continued.

A couple years went by and when I was visiting, for some reason, the subject of their homeowner’s insurance policy came up. My dad, mom, and I started looking through their papers and found a letter about the policy. I called about it and found that they hadn’t paid it for two years. The last activity on the account was making a claim when my dad had driven the car through the wall. So, they paid it and were ready for the next event.

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