Kevin's been fretting about his car for a while, up to and including incident on the way back from Mammoth during which his "check engine" light came on, prompting us to pull over and responsibly pop the hood to check the engine -- only to realize that we wouldn't recognize a problem with an engine unless it involved little drunk sprites tap-dancing on the heads of ex-presidents while holding firecrackers and martinis. And even then, that's more entertaining than problematic.

But given that and a few ensuing mechanical issues with his Explorer, and his ongoing search for a new car to replace it, it seemed unfair and a little surprising that my car was the one that decided it needed a tow.

On Tuesday night, after a long visit with Lauren at the hospital, I decided to leave at about 10:30 p.m. -- a bit earlier than I'd planned, but since she wanted some company the next day while she fasted before surgery, I wanted to get to bed early so that I could be there well before 9 a.m.

As I cruised down the darkened 101 freeway, I idly peeked at my instrument panel and thought it looked a little bit dimmer than usual. I was tired, though, and figured I was probably imagining it, because my car doesn't have a dimmer switch for such things and God knows it wouldn't be the first time my brain pulled a preemptive April 1 prank on me. Exhibit A: the dream I had about my friend Mary Beth getting pregnant, which I didn't realize was a dream until I had already picked up the phone the next morning and was in the act of calling my mother to tell her the good news. But at least it wasn't a dream featuring Evian front-and-center.

Finally, I hit my 101 exit, and cruised down the off-ramp to make a graceful right-hand turn onto Coldwater Canyon. An alarmingly short distance later -- maybe 40 feet -- the power in my car abruptly shut off and the whole thing lurched to the left. My eyes flew open. The car now drove as if I'd knocked it into neutral, but a quick check of the console revealed that I hadn't done that, and anyway, being in neutral doesn't automatically turn off the lights and the stereo. I cranked the wheel to the right and managed to pull over into the parking lane halfway, blocking a driveway but at least out of the road.

Immediately, tears welled in my eyes.

I hate that reaction so much, but sometimes it's so entirely unconscious that I can't help it -- and I hate that even more. This was just pent-up frustration coming to the fore, though, after several days of fervently thinking positive thoughts for Lauren's sake and attempting to swallow my worry about her and this major operation she'd be undergoing. Having my car die was the last straw, and I was so simultaneously relieved that nothing happened to me while I was still on the freeway going 65 mph that I couldn't hold back the water.

Then, I couldn't find my AAA card, which apparently hadn't yet made the transfer between my old wallet and the kicky new Jana Feifer one I bought on eBay -- black leather with a white-leather "h" on the front, incidentally, and it's soft as can be and I love it, even when it's not holding my AAA card when I need it most.

Swallowing hard and trying to bring my voice down the few octaves it creeps up when I'm upset and trying not to cry, I dialed Kevin and haltingly asked him to call AAA on my behalf. He calmly agreed and said that if they needed to tow it on his membership, he'd drive out and be here to show them his card. "Thank you I'm sorry," I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth as I hung up so he could call. When AAA called, they very nicely agreed to take me at my word and promised all I'd need was my photo ID. Kevin called again and said he'd drive out anyway, because I would probably need a ride somewhere from a tow shop. So there I was, sitting on a dark road, half and hour standing between me and either a tow truck driver or my boyfriend -- neither of whom I particularly wanted to see me in tears, however quiet.

So I called Michael. "On the way home from the hospital my car broke down," I blurted out. There was a pause, followed by loud laughter. "Oh my GOD, you guys are CURSED," he chortled. And, bless him, with that he did exactly what I'd needed him too: talk to me casually, so that my mood would normalize and I'd stop focusing on things that made me more agitated. And the whole thing is a bit amusing -- I mean, I've had this car six years, and on the eve of my closest friend's surgery, the damn thing goes on strike.

I've never really had car trouble. My Honda's been charmed. I've had to replace tires and brake pads, and my battery died recently, but that was more from old age than anything -- yes, the valet left my lights on, but the thing had already lasted two years longer than the average battery does, so I can't find especial fault with that. Perhaps as a result of the minor and run-of-the-mill Honda problems I've had, and also in part because I'm not interested in grease and machinery, I know nothing of the inner workings of cars, and nothing exposes this like trying to talk about what happened to your vehicle when it suddenly ceased working. Vehicular mechanics somehow brings out the dumb blonde in me and I'm left feeling both woefully undereducated and desperate to take a class on How Cars Work, And Also, Learn To Check Your Own Damn Oil So That You Don't Take It For An Oil Change And Find Out That It Doesn't Need One.

"What happened?" Michael asked.

"Well, things turned off, and the car moved weirdly, and I pulled over, and the headlights are really dim and nothing works and it won't start," I rushed. "If fucking AAA sold me a bum battery, I'm going to kill them."

"If the lights are on at all, it's not your battery," Michael said.

"..." I replied, a little embarrassed.

"Is it your fan belt?" Michael asked.

"My what? I'm not wearing a belt," I replied. "No, your car's fan belt. Did it snap?" Michael asked. "Something SNAPPED in my car?" I asked, horrified. "Just look under the hood and tell me what you see," Michael said patiently. "I can't," I replied. "I don't know where the latch is, and every time I try to find it I get black shit on my fingers and then that gets everywhere."

"..." Michael said.

"Is the battery hookup broken?" I asked, trying to sound knowledgeable.

"Sounds like your alternator," Michael speculated. "That's the part that" blah blah current blah eyes glazed shit's broken.

The hazard lights still worked, so it couldn't be the battery, yet when I flicked on the headlights they were all but dead, and turning the key in the ignition elicited a few irritated clicks. Michael explained again for me that my car's electricity wasn't getting distributed, the engine couldn't turn over, and basically, my car wouldn't work. At least, I think that's what he said. On round two, I was trying to pay more attention, but in my head I was wondering if this was a good excuse to indulge in ordering some soothing Indian food for dinner the following night.

Kevin showed up twenty minutes later, remarking that en route to me, he'd seen three other cars on the road in similar states. Indeed, the AAA guy called to say he'd be an additional 20-25 minutes because six other calls came at the same time mine did, and they needed to get another driver out to me. But Kevin's good company, and it felt good to be hugged -- I'd calmed down completely, but I still felt some residual stress and a lot of nervous anticipation for Wednesday.

We popped the hood, Kevin apparently able to locate a hood latch despite knowing barely more about the inner workings of a car than I do. And we gazed upon the engine in the darkness.

"Yeah, it's..." he began. "Yeah," he added a second later.

"The engine's still there," I said helpfully.

"I have no idea what I'm looking for," Kevin said. "Nothing's poking out in weird places, I guess, which means I'm not going to be able to figure this out. I like my car problems to be really, really obvious. Like, 'My engine's broken. I know this because when I popped my hood, I saw that it split in half.' That sort of thing."

"Michael thinks it's the alternator," I said importantly. "That's the thing that does something with the battery so that the car can... do things."

"Oh, yeah, I think... doesn't the alternator help turn the gas into electrical energy? Or it, you know, hooks with the battery, and ... the alternating current... Let's close the hood immediately," Kevin said.

We sat on the stoop of someone's apartment and chatted idly by my dying hazard lights, which dimmed and dimmed until the flickering became borderline strobe and then died in a last convulsive gasp of amber.

At about midnight, the tow truck came and whisked my car to a nearby auto shop; Kevin drove me home, and the next morning took me to rent a car to get me to Lauren. That process took way too long, too, because when I asked for the second-smallest car, the man said he didn't have anything smaller than Intermediate, but he'd give me the lower rate. Settled on that, he went outside to scout for one, and returned with a fading smile. "Unless you want me to put you in a minivan today!" he said, trying to sound all confident and appealing, as if he were doing me a favor. "Do you have to?" I asked. "Or a convertible! For ten dollars more!" he continued. "Er�" I trailed off. "We don't have anything smaller than a minivan," he confessed. "Sorry." But he swore that if I gave him ten minutes, he'd "clean the dog hair off of a Ford Focus" and get that for me. I didn't ask if the dog hair was on the inside or the bumper.

I made it to the hospital without incident, and the mechanics replaced my alternator that afternoon for a bare $255. I say "bare" because my knowledge of car parts is so woefully limited that they could've said, "Alternators cost $800," and I'd have been like, "Damn, car shit's expensive. Charge it."

Lauren was grateful for the company as she hungrily waited to be knocked out; by 4:30, when they wheeled her down to the OR, she was well and truly sick of being unable to eat. I waited with her parents for about two hours, then headed home to do laundry before the 9 p.m. cutoff time.

As I approached the white Ford Focus, I thought idly, "Something looks different about my rental car. � Ohhh, that's it, the left wing mirror is hanging down by the side of the car." Some asshat had knocked off my side mirror, and it was dangling by an electrical cord. I just stared at it flatly, my mouth gently agape. "How� what� where�" I muttered, picking up the offending mirror and turning it around in my hands. I found a place that looked like it might snap back onto the car, and crossed my fingers. Click. It stayed affixed. Barely. The top part seemed secure, but the bottom was flapping a tiny bit. For the first time in my life, I prayed for jammed highway traffic so that I wouldn't be traveling at speeds that knocked the wing mirror back off the car and left it banging against the door.

I got my wish. But I couldn't believe my poor karma -- "car"ma, to make the obvious and pathetic wordplay. At least this time I just laughed, probably because the mirror reattached without terrible incident and passed as functional when I returned the car. My mother was a little alarmed that I planned to return it without mentioning this, but I wasn't willing to risk getting blamed for something I didn't do. Plus, hey, it was still where I'd stuck it, so who needed to be the wiser? Certainly not my mother, apparently. "Oh, Heather," she sighed.

Lauren made it through surgery with flying colors after having a bunch of her lung stitched together. She's in Intensive Care tonight, and will hopefully get her own room tomorrow. She's feeling surprisingly good, and even got up and sat in a chair for fifteen minutes today before starting to feel a little stiff. Such is the beauty of morphine, apparently. She'll have plenty more to tell once she's convalescing at home, and she'll have plenty of time to tell it, so I won't elaborate. But I was unbelievably relieved to hear the news, and delighted to call everyone and tell them. If by some chance Lauren ever felt unloved at any time over the past few months, she certainly knows now that she's loved by all, and it's pretty awesome.

As for me, I'm about to strap on some foot knives and skate on my automotive thin ice back to the hospital. At this rate, I expect several of my tires to pop off; at least I have my AAA card this time.

Someone got here by searching for: what kind of storm does form north in Las Vegas? Shredding: Everything, pretty much -- I went through so much paperwork last night as I puttered around the apartment. Saving: All the receipts I can, for next year's taxes. I need to get better about this stuff.