Car Problems

Some of you might have read an earlier post about bicycles, and the hassles that accompany them. This one is about cars, because apparently bad luck is not limited to two wheeled vehicles. As somebody who appreciates the humor in life, the following post documents the unabated week or two of car problems that recently plagued me and my room mate.

First off, some background information about the cars involved. The car that I own is a 1999 Ford Escort. It's gold, has four wheels, two doors, a sunroof, you know... car things. Anyway, about a month ago my car broke down while I was out of town. Although I'm not too mechanically inclined when it comes to cars, I did know that it wasn't the battery, the gas, oil, spark plugs, radiator, or what not.

Should have checked the flux capacitor, Doc.

Anyway, it turns out that the problem with my car had something to do with a primer belt, or a timer belt, or some sort of belt. It was rather inconvenient to be stranded an hour away from both my house and my apartment. It was fixed, and all was right with the world again. Happy days!

Little did I know, this was just a taste of the car troubles yet to come.

Cue ominous music.

A few weeks later, a veritable monsoon hit the eastern part of the state. Roads were closed, homes flooded, even some schools were shut down because of the excessive amounts of rain pouring down. Driving through that did not agree with my car in the least. After driving through a puddle the size of a small pond, suddenly my car didn't want to turn.

Lucky for that pedestrian, my brakes still worked.

So I manage to pull my car into the parking lot of the local public library where it would be slightly less likely to be pillaged for spare parts or towed than if it was simply left on the street somewhere. I took a look at it, and the engine belt was draped over my wheel axle. Not a good look for my car.

I had a similar experience once with a makeover attempt.

I went to get some estimates from local repair shops, all of whom were rather unhelpful and vague when it came to giving me a quote. I brought in photos of the problem, with a detailed description, and all they could do was say "somewhere between 100 and 300 dollars". Not cool. As a poor college student, that kind of bank is not really what I'm all about.

So, that weekend, while attempting to figure out what to do about my down and out car, a friend mentioned that he knows a mechanic who will come to where your car is (saving on towing) and fixes things for less than most repair shops charge. Sounds like a win right?

Wrong... So very wrong.

The friend who recommended this "Mobile Mechanic" happens to be a little flaky at times. We attribute part of this to his status as a home schooled kid. Perhaps I should have realized that this might not work out as smoothly as anticipated.

I call the guy, tell him what type of car I drive, what's wrong with it, and where it's parked. I also gave him my cell and work phone numbers in case he needs to get up with me about the car. I even tell him where I'm leaving the spare key for him. Seems like all you should need, right?

Wrong! Again!

He can't find the car. It's not like I parked in a super center parking lot or anything, with multiple levels or anything. I parked in the only fucking parking lot next to the only fucking library downtown. I was the only gold, two door, sun roof-having Ford Escort out of the thirty cars in the entire parking lot. This should have been easier than finding Waldo in Antarctica.

Not for this guy.

There comes a time when you have to realize that thinks aren't going smoothly, you need to cut your losses and move on. However, I am notoriously both stubborn and lazy. I wanted my car fixed, and fixed the way I started.

After nearly a week of having my car sit in the library parking lot, I got so paranoid that I started seeing tow trucks everywhere. Like, more than I've ever seen in my life outside of a 50 car pileup on the freeway.

I also began to hear unexplained fake country accents.

Luckily for me, the library apparently doesn't care if a car stays parked in their lot, without moving, at all. My car sat in that parking lot at all times. It was there at 11:30 at night, it was there at 5:45 in the morning, and it was there at 1:30 in the afternoon. All week.

The only good part of this story is that the fly by night mechanic only charged me ninety dollars for fixing my car. That was a good deal. And for that, I will not attempt to blacklist that terrible mechanic. It might have taken him five phone calls, three visits to the library parking lot, some research and a little bit of actual work, but he got it done.

Great job guy!

Baby Face, Part Two

So, I recently posted an article about how my room mate looks a lot younger than he is. Despite the fact that even when he gets to be fifty he probably won't look much older than thirty, he sees his looks as a handicap. Personally, I don't get it. But it is funny, and so I'm going to write some more about it.

Often times, I think of him like Calvin, of the beloved Bill Watterson comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes". This comparison works well, because I compliment as Hobbes fairly well if I do say so myself.

I'm a little bigger, have more fur, and am lazy like a cat.

My room mate is impulsive, imaginative and incorrigible. That being said, he has aspirations that are bigger than his body (like being LeBron James), he has an odd way of expressing himself at times, and "seems cursed with an unnaturally thin beard".

As often as I rag on him about his inability to cultivate his own beard, every once in a while the tables are turned. One time, his mother and step father stopped by. Upon greeting me, the step father asks if perhaps I've lost any weight recently. I informed him that yes, the two of us had been going to the gym every morning and I had lost a bit of weight. "That's good" he says. "I thought you had. You look a little thinner in the face. More feminine."

Apparently what I looked like that day.

Now, I had a full beard going on at the time. Not like an "I've been shipwrecked on an island for the past three years with no company besides a volley ball" beard, but a solid "I could totally be a hockey player who just happens to have all his teeth intact" amount of facial hair. This was a pretty obvious burn on me.

My room mate immediately runs back into the living room laughing and pointing, probably saying something along the lines of "Awww! Burn!" or "How does it feel asshole?", I'm not really sure. I was still a little in shock. I learned a valuable lesson that day. It hurts to be told you aren't manly. So you should strike first and call the other person feminine.

I'll see you in Hell, baby face!

That being said, back to ripping on my room mate for being the one who normally gets called out for looking like a small child.

One time, my room mate and I were in the library along with three girls. We were in the graduate students study room, which is supposed to be only for graduate students. None of the girls were grad students, and all of us were laughing and carrying on, not exactly what should be going on in study room reserved for serious academic research, or whatever us grad students are supposed to be doing.

According to the internet, we're supposed to be grading papers.

Any way, I see the library security guard walk by the room, glaring at us a little bit. Not wanting to get on the bad side of the library staff, I quickly tell everyone in the room that I just saw the guy walk by, and that we should probably be quiet. I then told everybody that if the security guy comes back, "Everyone act like you're old. Grow beards or something." I turn to my room mate and make as if to console him, or tell him that it's okay if you can't grow a beard.

Insinuating that three undergraduate girls have better odds of growing out a beard than you do as a twenty five year old male could probably be devastating to one's self esteem. But we don't care about that here. All we care about is laughing at, with or about something.

He's a "collie-flower"! That joke slays me!

Next joke on the old/young room mate.

Back in his undergraduate days, he spent an inordinate amount of time at the library. Like, he spent so much time there that he got a chair with his name on a plaque there. When coming back from the library late at night, walking across the darkened campus, sometimes he would be a little bit scared of running into some vagabond criminal or other type of ruff customer.

Get it? "Ruff" as opposed to "Rough"? Dog-gone funny.

In order to combat this potential threat upon his person, he would use a little bit of stage craft to make him appear tougher than he was. What's this you ask? A fake mustache. My room mate would wear a fake mustache so that he would appear creepy and macho. Nobody was going to try and molest him if he looked like he might molest right back. I am not making this up.

Lastly, for Halloween we dressed up as Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake's characters from the SNL digital short "Dick in a Box". I already had a beard that I could trim down into the correct ridiculous facial hair. My room mate not so much. So we started searching for some fake facial hair to glue onto his face or something.

The right facial hair really makes or breaks the costume.

Every single costume shop was out of fake blond facial hair. Not only had nature conspired against him to prevent him from growing his own, but the retail world had also deemed that he should be without facial hair. We used a sharpie, which actually ended up looking pretty good, especially if the lighting was dim.

Artist's simulation

Hope you've enjoyed this post, and I apologize for the rather overboard usage of photos of dogs. What can I say, it just made me laugh. And that's what it's all about.