I Hate It Monday: Sideways Rain

(By Mike Brinkerhoff - from Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs)

Welcome to a new, possibly (semi) regular feature here on KUWTB, where I will attempt to work out my angst on a subject by publicly airing my frustrations. Sure the timing's a little off, what with the Holiday Season in full swing, but I need to work out this week's angst now, or it just may keep me from enjoying this Holiday Season. So here we go...

In July 2007 I bought my current car, which I still completely love!

In the 2 years and 4 months since then, I've almost always left the sunroof partly open - just a crack, really - no matter what the weather is doing, and I've never had a problem with water coming in my car.

Last Wednesday, the weather the the unthinkable and actually allowed for some sunshine to reach the wet side of Washington. I had an insanely busy workday, which included driving all over the south sound area, and was perfectly happy to have an excuse to crack the sunroof and let some fresh air in. I didn't get home from work until after 10:00 that night - see? insanely busy! - and when I did, I didn't think to close the sunroof because like I said, it's never been a problem.

Thursday was Thanksgiving (duh) and we went down to my sister Linda's house in Olympia. I noticed while we were there that it was raining most of the day, but didn't pay much attention to it. We had a great dinner, great time visiting, and great dessert. (12 pies to 11 people is a good ratio!)

When we made our way home, I lifted Danee's car seat out of the van and turned to walk up to the house, when I heard a weird thundery type sound. Even weirder, it sounded like it was coming from my car. Weirder still, it WAS coming from my car. I popped the trunk and it was super loud. A touch to one of the speakers confirmed my fear: even without a key in the ignition, something was causing the amplifier to try its hardest to rip the speakers to shreds.

To make things even more fun, it's a fully factory sound system, and I had no idea where the amp lived, so I had no idea how to do anything helpful. I opened the passenger door to start reaching around, and found a pool of water about 3 inches deep behind the passenger seat!!

Wow.

Even though it was after 10pm, our neighbor's lights were on, so Cindy went over and borrowed their shop vac. Just a little guy, holds 2.5 gallons of sawdust or water. While emptying the Sebring Municipal Swimming Pool, I had to empty that little bucket three times, so I'm going with around 7 gallons of water in my car.

I was totally confused because again, leaving the sunroof cracked in the rain is nothing new! But Jason (the neighbor) came out and told me that for much of the afternoon, it was raining sideways, and the wind was blowing in just the right direction to direct the rain right into my slightly open sunroof.

Great. Through all this time, the amp was still thundering. It was doing so with such ferocity that the battery was starting to get weak - the remote lock/unlock wasn't working, the dome light was flickering, etc. So to save what was left of my sanity, I popped the hood to disconnect the battery.

Then I put a space heater / fan on the wet carpet and left it there for 3 days while we went to the Tri Cities to visit family.

When I got back, the floor was still wet, and was now starting to smell like laundry that gets left in the washer too long.

Oh, and the amp still doesn't work. In fact, when I re-connected the battery, the thunder started up all over again. Found the amp (under the passenger seat) and pulled the plug. Never could find which fuse or relay goes to the amp... I pulled everything in the box and it kept thundering. Neat, huh?

So now I have a soggy car with no sound system. The stereo is a glorified clock that holds a CD. When I get time to, I'll pull the passenger seat out so I can get the amp out, and find out what actually blew out.

In the meantime, I'll probably spend a lot of time singing along with the bumps in the road...