Maddening Mis-Diagnosis

It's no secret that our Camry has suffered some seriously bad carma since we bought it a few years back.  Hitting a deer, rammed by a shopping cart, gouged by the garage door, spilled milk in the trunk, I could go on and on...  Thankfully all mutilations and manhandling this dang car seems to have attracted have all been fixed, cleaned, painted and patched, and only the high insurance premiums remain.

Everything except for the loose screw in my dashboard.

Mark has taken the dashboard off twice looking for the source of that mischievous and elusive clink-clank that rolls with each left and right turn, but it's never been found. It's like driving around a stinkin' Plinko board without a chance of ever winning anything.

Mark drove the Camry yesterday and I think he'd finally had enough. I could tell by the desperate scene I came upon...

I happened to look out the window towards our driveway and saw a car driving up.  It looked like our Camry but it didn't turn into the garage.  It drove right past and kept going around our circle drive. I assumed it was someone who'd erroneously turned up our driveway by mistake.  But then the car circled around again.
And again.
And Again.

At first I thought maybe Connor and his buddy Sev had decided to take the Camry for a joy ride.  Alarmed that a couple of criminally bored 13-year olds might be at the helm of my car, I stepped closer to the window and gave the scene a more discriminating look.  It wasn't Connor after all, it was Mark. But what the heck was he doing??

What he was doing was trying to once-and-for-all locate the loose screw!  After ten minutes of circling the drive, he finally pulled up and headed for the tools.  Never a good sign.  Once again he pulls the dash off and goes searching.  And, no surprise, comes up with nothing.

Then he goes back to circling the drive.  This time with poor Connor precariously perched half in the passenger seat and half way under the driver's side dash.  They're veering and zig-zagging the car around the driveway while the faint echo of the seat belt alarm was ding-ding-dinging from the scant parts left on the dashboard.

They finally pull back into the garage and Mark puts the dash back together and the proceeds to take out the front drivers seat:

After Connor spent time secluded under the car's dash in what I can only imagine was some freakish circus pose to lodge himself under there while his dad drove like a madman around our drive, he was totally convinced that whatever the loose thing was, he was certain it was not in the dash at all.  He decided it was somewhere in the seat.

 So out came the seat.  They were leaving no stone, dash, or seat unturned.

And look what Mark found...

Our loose screw turned out to be this stinkin' marble which had rolled under the seat, underneath the carpet, and lodged itself in a slot for the driver's seat!  Ahhhhhhhh!


Another ban has now been instituted at the Skillman house.  

NO MARBLES. Ever.

and now, peace at last in the Camry. 


...Except suddenly the "service required" light is now on.  I'm betting that what is required is that the dash to be put back on correctly by an authorized mechanic.


There's no winning with this Camry!