One final Paris related story.

This one is about coming home from Paris.

So it involves minimal time in Paris Your Daily Lex You know use the internet and you do the thing where you get all the Boarding passes and stuff and it’s like hey, here’s 40.

Nope.

Let’s try that again Here’s 80% of your boarding passes for the five boarding passes that you need I’m like, what about the fifth and the fifth?

It’s like you’re gonna have to talk to people in person so much like when We had first landed at Charles de Gaulle.

I was saying to the family.

Hey, I don’t know the rules here I don’t know how it works.

So You know, you can continue to follow me But I’m gonna have less confidence than when we fly out of say Newark and we walk into this huge Terminal and I can’t see that anywhere So I go to the first person who I can see works at the airport and in the worst American accented French.

I’m like, ooh United which was poor friendship best They point us in the right direction and we wait in the line and the person says I understand now why Sierra’s boarding pass isn’t available she’s been selected for a special screening and one of you can go with her when that happens and And We deal with all of that our flight is delayed numerous times.

There’s another flight from Newark That’s already supposed to have left but that hasn’t left.

It’s been delayed for many hours.

It’s having problems with weather stripping Eventually as we’re finally getting ready to board they pull Sierra out and they say that one parent can go with her and I do And the two people who are going to be doing serious special secondary screening don’t have a lot of English at all So it’s especially good that I’m the one who’s gone with you and we went I went with Sierra for that exact reason versus having And I think they gave her a less aggressive pat-down than they would have given her had she been an adult But before they even start they’re looking at me and they’re like, who are you?

And I’m like just we look pale I am the father with apparently a Hebrew is really French accent and they’re like, oh, okay and then they’re kind of laughing about how it’s silly that they’re Examining her that if they were gonna secondary screen anybody should be me and ha ha how funny that is And then they let Sarah go we got on the plane It stays on the ground for a long time, but eventually we go We fly I watch a lot of Black Mirror and some other stuff Land in Newark get through passport stuff in a hurry Collect our bags a little more slowly in a room that has no air conditioning like it’s 90 plus degrees and you’ve all just come On this long 8-hour international flight and it’s annoying and my cell phone rings and it’s my father-in-law who was picking us up at The airport now listen, it is a kindness that my father-in-law was willing to pick us up at the airport he was picking us up in my car and He loves to time leaving to pick people at the airport for the last minute so that he can wait zero seconds His goal is he drives up you walk in he drives off again So he’s left a little bit late and I had actually already checked his location on the map So I knew this but he calls me and he is panicked And he says the car lost power and I’m like you’re driving an electric car.

I need more context I need to know more about what you mean He said I was driving on the Jersey Turnpike and then suddenly I couldn’t accelerate past 35 miles an hour So I’ve pulled off and I’m like, I want you to go through these screens and I Will help you restart the car and he’s like, okay And then my father-in-law is never gonna be great at following tech instructions Particularly when he’s panicked and he was certainly panicked and he was not following the instructions and he couldn’t restart the car So eventually I made him pull over even more so that he could get out of the car and close the door and lock it Even locking the car with the key was a little bit tricky for him because I’m like push the top center button of the key He says I’m nervous because one has a little logo for the trunk and one for the front trunk I’m like what ones on one end and one to the other.

I want you to press the middle He’s like, oh, that’s why you said the center and I said, yes Anyway, he locks the car gets it to turn off gets back in it turns on it lets him drive.

He picks us up We get all our luggage.

We’re driving home and I did by the way Tell him don’t go to the cell phone line come straight to our terminal because we are ready and he did not listen Fine, it’s all fine again kindness.

We’re driving home Everything’s going hunky-dory until all of a sudden it’s not what my father-in-law had missed was the car flashing a message saying, you know Power reduced get service service required, whatever so now I have to pull over and The car won’t let me drive at all even at low power.

And so I restart the car and it still won’t let me go contacting Tesla Roadside assistance and eventually I leave it off for longer and it lets me go home and we’re like let’s or less we start the car I’m like, let’s stay in the right lane so we can pull over again as soon as necessary and we’ll take a slightly longer route But one that had more shoulders available and then over and over again The shoulders were closed like just traffic cones and everything blocking them but we got there in one piece and The only thing that I could attribute this potentially to it while two things one I had recently had them change the 12-volt battery in my car and maybe that times sometimes if they didn’t Fasten everything perfectly can lead to an issue and to my father-in-law hadn’t fully charged the car after he drove us to the airport And drove home in it before picking us up now It still had plenty of battery life left plenty of mileage left I thought maybe after not being driven for a week and not having a full charge.

Maybe it was just thirsty.

I don’t know Fully charge it up do a little bit of test driving and say we’re good.

So I’m gonna drive my family to dinner And of course the car died again same way actually died worse Because it said like the front engine is dead.

It said You can’t drive anymore.

And then it would also say you can still drive.

So this is all on the exit ramp from I guess a highway a traffic light having highway But on the eggs ramp it dies and keep saying you can drive it you can’t drive you can drive you can’t drive it So the family gets out the friends we were meeting for dinner came and picked them up while I stayed with the car I was texting with the police like hey, do you want to put a flare up because I’m right in the middle of this exit ramp It’s not great I’m again restarting the car restarting the car and eventually I get the car to start up again at a low speed like it’s gonna peak again at 30 miles an hour, I think at that time was 30 and The police are now calling me because you’re like, hey you stopped texting us and like well I’m driving it now as I texted you because the so I had texted the police.

Here’s where I’m stopped Here’s the kind of car and they’re like what color is the Model X that is stopped on this short exit ramp?

I’m like, well, it’s the blue stopped one So if you see other stopped Tesla’s don’t help them just me and like what’s the license plate of the blue Tesla that you’re stopped in?

I’m like you guys are dumb But so eventually they call him like yeah, as I mentioned I have gotten the car moving So I no longer need your help on that.

I ran and they said, okay, but where’s the car now?

I said I have gotten it all the way to the parking lot of the restaurant where I’m eating dinner and they said do you Still need us to come with flares.

I’m like, no, I think it’s probably safe in the parking spot of the parking lot It was very weird.

Anyway got towed.

It’s now a Tesla.

I have a loaner Not the best way to come home from France, but it’s fine.

I hate the car I love the car or I have loved the car, but right now I hate the car.

Happy weekend Lex