My brother dropped me a line from the road, with the tale of his van that kept on overheating. I just HAD to reply with my last weekend experiences, and give him my whole van break-down anecdote. Since I already typed it out, I may as well paste it here:

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Yes, vans do indeed break! That's why I was stuck in New Jersey last weekend. Gloria's father came into posession of a full-sized van, and essentially gave it to her. We just had to go pick it up. After loading it to the max with tons of furniture (her grandmother was conveniently moving out of her old place that day), we got on the Golden State parkway and from my rearview mirror I saw her tire shred into pieces and sparks fly. And the spare was some punctured piece of rubber with moldy water trapped in it. With neither of us having cell phones, her father being our only point of mutual phone contact, and Gloria's spare tire (with the presumably good hub) in my trunk, I left Gloria by the road with the van as I set out on the task of finding a place where I could buy a fitting tire on a Sunday night after 6pm.

After a number of payphone calls, numerous trips on and off the parkway to turn around (and having to pay 2 tolls each time for this), I had an incredible stroke of luck. After pulling over and checking out store #7, suddenly a tow truck pulled in, towing some teenager's car, followed by 6 teenagers crammed into a second car. I asked, and he did indeed have a tire back at the shop. His 11 year old son with the Hulk t-shirt got into my car and directed me to the garage. The boy was fascinated with my new iPod, the fact I met Ozzy Osbourne, and the fact that I saw Linkin Park at Ozzfest. He also talked me into giving him a big tip. Oh well, I was in a desparate situation where my wallet could easily be taken advantage of.

Got the tire. Drove back. Tried jacking up the van full o' stuff with my Maxima jack, but didn't get far. Got a tow truck to show up with a much better jack after we got the nuts off. Everything was fine and we tipped the man. Then after 100 feet of driving down the highway, the van's engine broke down.

Back to driving up and down the highway to the exit with a pay phone. We got a tow truck to tow the van and arranged for Gloria's dad to pick it up. I got gas and finally got home at 5 AM. I did leave a voice mail for my boss back in NJ, informing her that I'd be coming in later than 8:30 AM.

So...where was I. Yeah! Vans break.