General – Page 212

Cars and Classes

Geek Wannabe, General Comments Off

Oct 102007

So.

Last Wednesday (the last day before our week-long break from classes), the Business Law professor went over our most recent test. He mentioned, by name, several students who had gotten outstanding scores on the test. One of those students was me.

At last I get a second of recognition for working hard and getting good grades. And I missed it. I was at home calling a $*#! tow truck to haul my $*#! van to the $#*! repair shop.

Dammit.

Last night my spousal unit went over Care and Maintenance of Your New Car 101. I should brake and accelerate gently for the first thousand miles or so. Check the fluids when I fill it up. Monitor the dashboard warning lights. Take care of the paint job, and it would be preferable not to have bumper stickers on the vehicle.

Now, understand: he knows as well as I do that it’s my car now, I’ll do as I damn well please with it, and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of it. He went through the lecture mostly to make himself feel better, because he is a guy and a bit of a control freak. I’m being just as overprotective of my new car as he was of his—when I got out of class today, I actually did a walkaround before getting in to make sure she was as I’d left her. And I’ve never had a bumper sticker on any car of mine, even the crappiest.

So I just listened and nodded and agreed with him, because I know it’s difficult for him to turn the whole thing over to someone else. If the occasional lecture on proper car care helps him feel better about this sizable new investment we’ve acquired, I can put up with that.

But I do have my ornery streak, and now I’m so very, very tempted to hang some big purple fuzzy dice from the rear view just to see if he has a stroke.

Early Birthday Present

Geek Wannabe, General, I Love My Car Comments Off

Oct 092007

Last night my mate and I went to retrieve the van. I wanted him along in case the thing crapped out entirely, so I wouldn’t be stuck out in the great nothing between Fuquay and Raleigh.

We babied it carefully to the halfway point, and then pulled off to let it cool down a bit. I pulled into what looked like a functioning gas station, but what turned out to be a gas station that was still under construction. The building and the pumps were there and all lit up, but the parking lot was an unpaved mud flat. The van and the husband’s car now have a quarter inch of dried mud in the driver’s side. The side stairs of our house were covered in muddy footprints. The kitchen floor was a lunar landscape of dried mud ridges and craters.

We managed to get it the rest of the way home, although once I got off the freeway it was a bit nerve-wracking as the temperature gauge shot straight into the red and stayed there. I kept expecting the engine to seize up and wrench itself out of the chassis, or something.

My mom read my plaintive blog entry yesterday and offered to drive me around to some of the errands that have not gotten done over the school break. As we were buying some paper (so I can print out a report that’s due tomorrow), my spousal unit phoned and asked if I wanted to go vote for the city council and then look at some cars. He’d found a Honda dealership that had several new Fits on the lot.

We’ve actually been looking at cars for a while, as gas prices went up and feeding the van became more and more costly. But we’ve been spoiled by his Honda Fit. He bought that car, new, for around $16k, and now we just can’t see paying more for a used car than we would for a brand-new Fit with all the trimmings. Apparently a lot of people feel the same way, because Honda dealerships can’t keep the things on the lot for more than a week or so.

This dealership must’ve just gotten some in, because they had three or four of them on hand. We looked over the choices, picked one we liked, and got the paperwork all signed and ready to go. And just like that, I now own the first new car I’ve ever had—a storm-grey 2008 Honda Fit.

Amazing how fast my car situation went from a steaming pile of suck to a great big bucket of squee.

Van On Last Legs

Geek Wannabe, General Comments Off

Oct 082007

Last Wednesday, the van wouldn’t start. I’d turn the key, it would go “hng hng hng” but it wouldn’t actually start. Called a tow company and had it towed out to the repair shop that I always use. The tow driver tried starting it as well before we pushed it out of the driveway. Then I called mom to give me a ride to classes.

The downside of a really good repair shop is that they’re generally really busy. They were able to get to it Friday morning; it started just fine for them. Of course.

They kept it all day, trying it off and and on to see if they could reproduce the problem. No luck. So Friday night we went and fetched it home again.

This afternoon I went to give my friend Jade a ride to the doctor’s office. No problems all the way out to her house (she lives in a city just southeast of mine). But as soon as we pulled out of her driveway the “OMG SO HOT!!” light came on. The temperature gauge was in the red. It cooled down as long as I was moving, but as soon as I’d stop at a light it would swing over into the red again.

So we pulled over into a Wal-Mart parking lot and called Guardian to come to our rescue. Looks like one of the radiator fans has stopped working.

SIGH

I guess I should be glad that it decided to crap out during our break from classes. But I had kind of hoped to get a little more done in the way of errands while school was out. Dry cleaning to drop off and pick up. Checks to deposit. And I had a box of goodies to ship to my soldier.

My husband needs to hurry up and get his next car so I can take over his old one.

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