Can't blog - too busy frantically searching the house for something stronger than Darvocet, with which to kill the butt-pain from the ass raping I just took at the hands of my friendly neighborhood auto mechanic. Anyone got a Tuck's Pad?
I told you my car died on Monday? Fuel pump. Kablooey. European car, special parts, etc., ad fuckitum. Seven-hundred and fifty dollars ad fuckitum, that is. Seven-fifty, I remind you, just three months after I drop seventeen hundred on a new transmission. Now, my brakes are shot. I've known that, really, and I was planning to have 'em done next weekend. Not anymore; I won't be able to get them done until the first of February. Not and, you know, actually pay for it, too.
Oh, yes - it is an all-cash economy around here, folks; all my credit cards - and Mister MacFarland's - are frozen in blocks of ice in the freezer, where they will remain. We are, and we stay, virtually free of consumer debt by one rule and one rule alone: unless it's a house, if we can't pay cash for it, we can't have it. Umm...hello? MacFarland? Cheap fucking Scot? Me. So, no brakes for now. Right? Tough love.
Before the mechanic would let me leave with my car, I had to sign a special waiver saying that the proprietor had notified me about the dangers of imminent catastrophic brake failure, and that in the event of my being burned beyond recognition and maimed for life, I agree not to sue, blah, blah, blah. I signed; when I handed him his pen back he looked at me, knit his brows in a worried frown, and sighed sadly. "If you was mah wahf," he said, "Ah wun't let you drahv that car lahk it iyus."
Sweet sentimental lad; I bit off my totally reflexive rejoinder - If I was your wife, you'd probably cut the brake-line yourself. Instead, I just thanked him and handed him the check.
Fucking brakes. I'm going to be so pissed if I end up having to defrost a Visa over this.
Posted by Queenie at January 6, 2005 08:59 PMGetcher brakes fixed, honey. The interest on the card and the cost of the brake job is a damn sight cheaper than a casket.
Posted by: Pammy at January 6, 2005 10:11 PMI cannot comment on the carnivorous nature of the errant mechanic, having found a great one after a steady diet of Midnight Express, however I can speak to the Tucks Pads. No, I don't have hemorrhoids, however I use the Tucks with relish because, well, it feels like a real live angel is kissing your anus. I like that.
Posted by: Velociman at January 6, 2005 10:25 PM...and how many real-live angels have been kissing the Velociass to provide the comparative? Equiring minds want to know. ;)
I like Tucks because they're made of Witch Hazel, the thing with the coolest name ever.
Posted by: Queenie at January 6, 2005 10:47 PMWitch hazel?
I had no idea!
Can they be used as an astrigent for the face?
Posted by: jmflynny at January 6, 2005 11:27 PMI come in here to tell a friend to defrost her fucking Visa so she can live to bitch about it, and I get this? Anal fantasies?
See, this is why people drop comments without reading the thread. ; )
Posted by: Key at January 7, 2005 12:06 AMI don't know about all that anal stuffin', but I can tell ya this. I ain't never seen a set of brakes so bad they cost 750. At that rate, you'd be better off fuckin' yourself.
Get my meanin'?
'Neck
Posted by: RedNeck at January 7, 2005 01:12 AMFix yer Goddamn Dawgfuckin Brakes if you have to hock any thing less important than yer Immortal Soul to do so!
Hell, you might kill an innocent person!
Or, like, you know, *walk*? Gotta bicycle?
All the best, ttfn.
You clearly don't need any more advice on the matter, but just in case: At a minimum, use a different mechanic if you can.
Or, embarrassing as I find it to be forced to say, send the Mr. with your car. Mechanics, particularly those who talk like Cooter, apply a premium to the cost of service for any unaccompanied female.
Posted by: Patton at January 7, 2005 02:17 AMHey, Patton, doan chew talk that way about Cooter! He (Ben Jones) was my Congresscritter for a while back when I lived in East Atlanta!
I don't mind if you call him a bolshevik Demonrat, though!
Posted by: Justthisguy at January 7, 2005 03:28 AMOk, so some people/site owners/bloggers/journal writers are against this sort of thing but have you thought of installing a PayPal button or an Amazon Honor System button on your site? In my experience, I have noticed that readers can be extremely generous when you are faced with a financial issue.
Look, if it's a pride thing...really, your brakes being fixed are a lot more important. Well, I guess each has their own list of priorities but on the off chance it did not occur to you to add one of those buttons, there's an idea.
Otherwise, I hope you do alright until you can get the brakes fixed.
Posted by: Serenity at January 7, 2005 12:53 PMRedNeck: 750 was for the fuel pump, not a quote for the brakes. (Though I suppose with a EuroCar, if you needed new calipers, it could easily come to that...)
Heck, around here, Les Schwab will give you rebuilt calipers and resurface the discs for about $150 an axle (less if it's drum brakes, of course). Brakes just shouldn't cost "much" (as auto repairs go) unless you have a Ferrari or something.
Posted by: Sigivald at January 7, 2005 01:57 PMAuto brakes are one of the simplest projects to do on a car. See if you can get someone to help you- one of the ladies where I work got tired of spending so much on the brake jobs on her Jetta, I showed her how to do it, she now does it herself. She now spends $28 on a brake job that used to cost $190 and she's very good.
She's also a teeny tiny girly girl, who you'd never think would be caught dead with a wrench in her hand.
Good on the cards, too. I destroyed all my credit cards years ago, I just don't have any.
Posted by: og at January 7, 2005 02:59 PMCopy that do-it-yourself brake job. I do my own, period. Got myself that damned manual, looked it up, looked at the floor jack and said "What the hell". Mind you, I've got the nice, easy ones. If you have the ones with all those springs and crap in there, just buy the special tools for the job first.
Honestly, tho - it's REALLY easy to do and hellishly cheap. At least consider it...
Posted by: LauraN at January 7, 2005 05:26 PMOg, you beat me to the punch. Replacing pads is really one of the simpler things to do to most cars--just a bit more complex than changing the oil and replacing the spark plugs. If it's something like replacing frozen calipers, or the rotors/drums need resurfacing (unless they're significantly scored or ridged you don't really have to), it's a little more work, but you can ususally get them off and take them to the machine shop for that part of the work. Plus it gives you the chance to repack the front wheel bearings, which never hurts to do. For most cars, this usually doesn't take much more than a basic tool kit, which I assume Mister MacFarland has?
There's a lot of stuff I can't do on the newer cars, and that gripes my wagger, because it's *never* less than $500, no matter *what* it is, when I'm forced to take it in. So I like to do what I can myself.
Og: For any task not involving a lot of brute strength, I think women have *advantages* for auto repair.
I mean, I have thin hands and long fingers for a guy, and there are things I can *barely* do on my old Krautmobile (like get to the !@#! nut holding the !@#! speedo cable to the back of the !@#!^ instrument cluster...). I shudder to think what someone with big ol' mechanic hands would have to do to manage it.
Of course, the guy with big ol' mechanic hands probably doesn't need a breaker bar to get the fill nut off a differential, either... Win some, lose some.
(Heck, I learned most of my wrenchin' skills, including how to do brakes, from a girl. Her dad was a mechanic, you see.)
Posted by: Sigivald at January 10, 2005 05:12 PM