Auto adventures
Feb. 22nd, 2007 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeYesterday my car forced the Repair Procrastination Issue by having its other front tire go flat as I was backing out of the driveway to drive to class. After briefly attempting to fix the other car's flat tire (but the jack was an unfamiliar type and no lug wrench was anywhere to be seen), I then had the adventure of borrowing my mom's car for two hours, arriving at class 35 minutes late, and having Bertram use the occasion to share a long story of his own a.m. travails, past and present, with the entire class.
Later, when I helped R. change that Volvo tire, I discovered that yellowjackets can indeed live until late February! When he finally found a lug wrench in his old pickup truck - our third non-functioning vehicle - I asked him to put up the hood so I could take out the yellowjacket nests from last summer, and when I got down the larger of the two nests, three live wasps climbed out of it, shocking me into dropping it on the ground with a shriek. Good thing I'd superstitiously scraped it off with a trowel instead of just tugging it with my hand!
Anyway, today AAA towed my Camry down to Wayne's Garage, which is rather an upscale sort of place, ultra-professional, and later I dropped off the Volvo's defective new tire at the place we'd bought it so they could fix it (faulty valve stem). Then I went home to wait for the garage to call me back. And here's the point I'm coming to: The downside of having a highly professional, conscientious auto shop is that occasionally you'll end up having a 48-minute phone conversation with a person who wants to explain to you everything you could possibly fix in your car, their relative priorities, the cost implications of various combinations of maintenance activities, et cetera.
I do like to understand things, though, so it's all okay.
Later, when I helped R. change that Volvo tire, I discovered that yellowjackets can indeed live until late February! When he finally found a lug wrench in his old pickup truck - our third non-functioning vehicle - I asked him to put up the hood so I could take out the yellowjacket nests from last summer, and when I got down the larger of the two nests, three live wasps climbed out of it, shocking me into dropping it on the ground with a shriek. Good thing I'd superstitiously scraped it off with a trowel instead of just tugging it with my hand!
Anyway, today AAA towed my Camry down to Wayne's Garage, which is rather an upscale sort of place, ultra-professional, and later I dropped off the Volvo's defective new tire at the place we'd bought it so they could fix it (faulty valve stem). Then I went home to wait for the garage to call me back. And here's the point I'm coming to: The downside of having a highly professional, conscientious auto shop is that occasionally you'll end up having a 48-minute phone conversation with a person who wants to explain to you everything you could possibly fix in your car, their relative priorities, the cost implications of various combinations of maintenance activities, et cetera.
I do like to understand things, though, so it's all okay.