Sometimes you just have to be able to laugh at yourself

My daughter and I got up early this morning for yet another drive to San Diego for another fun-filled day of house hunting.

House hunting in California is interesting to say the least. Houses go on the market one day and have multiple offers ABOVE the asking price the next day. That is not an exaggeration. Not even a little bit. One has to move quickly and be ready to pay a lot of money in order to be a home owner in California.

Needless to say my daughter is pretty tense. Plus she's pregnant and the hormones are running on overtime.

So this morning we were ready to go by 7 a.m. and congratulating ourselves that we had the foresight to fill the gas tank last night. I reminded her we still needed to check the oil to which she replied, "The check engine light is on."

Shit. And she was not impressed with my suggestion we place a piece of black electrical tape over the light.

We stopped and checked the oil. It was fine. I showed her where the coolant was supposed to go and even bought some, but I was not comfortable adding coolant. So we didn't.

By this time she was having a meltdown. "I can't drive to San Diego. I can't buy a house. I can't replace an engine."

My telling her it would all work out in the end did not help. My telling her I knew how she felt because it happens to King and I all the time did not help either.

 After learning that automotive stores in California no longer run diagnostics, I suggested we take the car to an oil change place and at least have all the fluid levels checked. It was the best I could come up with without having my head removed.

We pulled into the nearest oil change place and waited the 10 minutes until they opened. We pulled into the bay and the young man servicing her car asked what we needed.

My daughter batted her eyelashes, patted her tummy, pointed to the offending light and said, "I just need to know if this is a check engine light or a service engine soon light. I've Googled it and it says  this car has both and I don't know which one this is."

The kid looked at it and said, "It says the air pressure is low in your tires."

He didn't charge us for the air.