What does it mean to you when things seem to go a little better than expected? To me, it means that I should get ready for the bad news. Today was a pretty good one for the most part, so the laws of nature dictate that tomorrow should pull everything back into balance. Therefore I'm bracing for the news that I'll have to shell out quite a bit of coin to get this car situation resolved. We'll know soon enough.
I went ahead and booked a rental car from Enterprise before I went to bed last night. It cost something like $150 for a week, so not too bad. The fella from the rental place came and picked me up this morning, so at least my transportation for the next several days has been secured.
Given my general mistrust of people that I don't know... Hang on. Let's correct that right now. Given my general mistrust of people, whether I know them or not... Yeah, that's better... I wasn't too keen on the idea of calling a local repair shop and handing over my car. There's a possibility that I can get by with a few basic repairs. There's also a possibility that I need a new engine. In either case, I'll be content to pay the appropriate price and move along with my life. I have money in the bank and I don't tend to get too stressed out about pecuniary matters, so I'm inclined to file this sort of thing in the 'You win some, you lose some' column. My only concern was that I would have no way of knowing if the diagnosis presented to me was an accurate one.
So I called my father and gave him the rundown. As I suspected, he knew a guy. Apparently my brother's father-in-law has a buddy who has an auto shop or something. This guy has done work for various people in my family and my father likes him. Okay then. Better than nothing. I spoke with the mechanic in question this afternoon and told him that I would find a way to get my car down to the shop (~5 miles from here) tomorrow morning. I think I get up to 5 miles for free with my AAA membership, so I might have to drive down the block a little bit before I call them. No point in paying for a service call when I don't have to. That's my policy... or something.
Next it was time to tackle the trio of ghetto Kroger stores on today's agenda. Man bites dog. Each stop went quickly and easily. In point of fact, the whole shift would have taken only five and a half hours if not for the fact that my second store sits right next to a school. All of these degenerate bastards park in the Kroger lot and then walk over to the school to retrieve their little bundles of joy, so I had to spend twenty minutes trying to fight my way to the loading dock. No justice...
It was way too early to head to the gym by the time I finished work, so I cruised back home in my nifty Dodge Avenger and hung out for a while. ("Free upgrade," they call it. "No cheaper cars available this morning," I call it.) The latest issue of Maxim was in my mailbox. Per usual, it had a bunch of tired old jokes that I heard from Jackie the Joke Man back in the 90's. In a nice twist though, the Anna Kournikova pictorial was in 3-D. Not bad at all.
Tomorrow's work assignment looks nice and easy so far. I'll be pulling a trailer from the Country Fresh dairy in Livonia at 11am and then making a turn in Grand Rapids. As long as there are no complications I should be done by 5pm or so. There's always the chance that more work will pop up, but that hasn't happened much lately. Odds are that I'll get an early start on my Thursday off from work. That'll do.
Is there any way you can go back on the company that did your oil change ? Maybe you can have an oil analysis done and find out they used the wrong oil or something ? And if there was a leak bad enough to lose the oil within a few weeks they probably should have noticed it and made you aware of it. Also if you burned through oil that quick it's too much of a coincidence that you just got your oil changed. It sounds like they screwed something up as easy as an oil change is.
ReplyDeleteTK THE TRUCKER
By the way Joe I've actually been reading your blog every day for like 3 years. In true trucker fashion I've just been too lazy to ever leave a comment. I must have had motivation today or too much time.
ReplyDeleteMotivation and time - two things that seem to appear in inverse fashion to one another. When there's time, there's no motivation, and vice versa. In any case, thanks for chiming in. I always appreciate the feedback.
ReplyDeleteBased on my conversation with the mechanic today, the car situation just sounds like one of those things that happens sometimes. Rarely, as it turns out, but sometimes. He seems to think that the failure of the engine is what caused the oil to burn and not the other way around. I park in the same spot every day, both at home and at work, so I'm pretty certain that there was no leak. C'est la vie, man. I won't lose any sleep over it.
(I guess this is something of a sneak preview, since I'm about to head out to the damned gym right now and I'll make tonight's post when I get back. My engine will in fact need to be replaced. Hooray.)