Monday Memory: The Mercury "Mistake"

When Jer and I got married, he drove a maroon Mercury Mystique. He bought the car right after his mission, and he put a lot of miles on it what with our living in Provo and his working in Salt Lake and his having to drive around a lot for work. The thing was a piece of crap. NEVER BUY A FORD CAR! Sorry Ford owners, but we are scarred for life and will never own another one.

For our first anniversary in 2001, we drove to Las Vegas and then back to St. George for a couple of days. I'm not a huge fan of Vegas (too much sensory overload, too many weird people, too much monetary excess, too hot, etc. Too much, too much, too much!), so we only stayed there one night and then spent the rest of the time in St. George. Jeremy had a good friend, Tim, from his mission who lived there, and he wanted to take us hiking around Zions National Park.

We got all our stuff together and loaded up the Mystique. As we were driving up the hill toward Zions, the transmission just gave out! We couldn't put it in drive, only in reverse. There wasn't much traffic, so Jeremy was able to drive backwards down the hill and into a gas station parking lot. We made some phone calls, and Tim helped us out by jerry-rigging a tow line to his Isuzu and pulling us to a nearby mechanic for diagnosis. Obviously they couldn't get the car running again without ordering a new transmission, etc. We did not want to leave the car in St. George, plus we were due back to work like the next day. What to do? We eventually towed the car back to the gas station and called Jeremy's dad. We explained the situation, and being the magnanimous individual that he is, Kevin offered to rent a tow unit from U-Haul and drive all the way down to St. George to pick us up. For the record, I can't imagine our lives without Kevin. He is always baling us out of one thing or another!

Meanwhile, it is HOT! We were outdoors in St. George in the middle of summer. The gas station had a huge beer locker, which we utilized several times. After all the plans were negotiated, we did end up hiking Angel's Landing in Zion's, which I highly recommend.

Jeremy's dad owns his plumbing business, and he drives a work vehicle that is always stocked with supplies. He works with big commercial boilers and such. At that time, he drove a big white van which was stuffed to the brim with plumbing supplies. We hooked up the Mystique and loaded up. Unfortunately, there was only one available passenger seat, so poor Jeremy had to ride all the way home to Provo in the back of the van, sitting on a tool box. Ha ha ha!

I don't remember all of the details of getting that blasted car fixed, but I know it was a hassle and a half. Something about how the transmission was placed inside the car meant they had to remove the whole engine to get to it or something like that. It was not a cheap fix. We got rid of the car shortly thereafter.

We found out later that Mystique had been affectionately dubbed the Mercury "Mistake" by many in the world. Wish we'd known that sooner!