So when I finally sat down and went through the pile of unopened mail that had been building up for a month and found out my car had been recalled I immediately made an appointment for the fix for the first possible day - Monday May 13.
Only later did I realize this was the day Mercury (cars, duh) came to the ascendant, very fitting as the Hyundai dealer is in Tucson, three and a half hours away.
I was feeling very proud of myself driving down the hill to Lordsburg. I'd printed out a map of where the dealership was and knew what exit I was to get off at, and had written out the last part once I was off the 10 in big letters so I could read it while I was driving. I knew where the nearest Trader Joe's was. I'd brought a little insulated bag with one of those frozen ice things in it. I'd remembered to bring something to drink. I'd left the light on on the back patio in case something dreadful happened and I didn't get back till dark. Ginger was inside. I was in plenty of time for my 1.00 pm appointment - I'd left the house at 9:00 and the drive takes round about three and a half hours.
Running through that list in my head, I was feeling pretty smug until the dreaded daylight savings time question popped itself up - what time is it in Tucson?
One would think that after coming out to the southwest for eleven years I'd have sorted this out by now, but I have enough trouble with plain old daylight savings time by itself without adding in living next to a state that ignores it. One could also think that having taken a flight from Tucson Airport last summer I would remember whether if it's nine am in Silver it's ten am or eight am in Tucson, and whether it's in summer or winter that it's the same time in California as it is in Arizona, but no such luck - I hadn't even remembered time was an issue till I was on the road.
Once I did, dim memories from last year of being all excited thinking I could have Popeye's fried chicken in Willcox on the way to the airport and then it being so early when I got there Popeye's wasn't open began to surface, and while I couldn't remember what time the flight had been (surprise) I was pretty sure it had been earlier than one, meaning (in the way my mind works, at least) I was going to get to Tucson at 11:30, an hour and a half earlier than necessary.
I was right. The great big TA stop in Willcox thoughtfully provides its own simplified version of the array of world clocks on 57th and Madison - they only have four but frankly that's more than enough for someone like me, especially as I used to think there were only three - and there it was, time in Tucson, one hour away from Willcox, 10:30.
Anticipating this ever since I remembered the , I'd decided that assuming I got off at the right exit and the map was right and Trader Joe's was as close to the dealership as it seemed to be, I could go to Trader Joe's FIRST and get whatever I decided I couldn't live without in Silver and THEN keep the appointment, especially as I'd been thoughtful enough to bring the insulated bag.
And that's exactly what I did, stowing my two little logs of goat cheese away so they'd be cool while I waited for whatever they did to the car to be done, and best of all, because that flight last year must have been earlier than the dealership appointment, I got my chicken fix and wasn't even hungry in Trader Joe's. And I got back before it was dark.
Oh, and yeah, I forgot - the Ascendant's other people, right, so the man in the red van who had to swerve so as not to hit me when I pulled out too soon on the way to the 10 after the car was fixed was probably just saying hello when he shook his fist at me....
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