Car Repairs - God Help Me!

     Page Nineteen.
     I know that this blog is supposed to be about my experiences with food and children plus my history with elder care. I feel though that since I've already strayed from those topics occasionally, if I really go off into left field sometimes it isn't a mortal sin. Clearly, this blog would have already blown up if there were some strict rule about adhering to your own parameters. But it's still here, so there you go.
     I dropped my car off this morning to have some relatively minor work done. I needed a couple of new tires, new brakes, new wiper blades and an oil change. Neil then called me back and gave me a laundry list of things that need to be done 'else my car will explode, and take half of Ohio with it. For the record, I trust Neil tremendously. He's been doing my car for over twenty years. His brother-in-law was one of my best friends during my college days and I'm quite friendly with his father-in-law. Also, I decorate his garage for the holidays every December, for free. (That's a separate story.) He and I are buddies. But every single time I take The Golden Warrior in to be serviced, it needs an additional $43,769,753,008,178,264,938.61, plus tax, worth of work. I'm sick of it!
     I'm very grateful for this car. It's a 2001 that I purchased from some current elder-care clients in 2010. When I bought it from them in November of 2010, this nine year old car had 16,000 miles and they essentially gifted it to me, charging me 1/3 of it's value. I'm quite thankful that right now I have the money to put in the required repairs. Neil is also putting the wiper blades and oil change on the house which is nice. (Most of my oil changes are on the house to say thanks for the free Christmas lighting.)
     What did people do one thousand years ago when their cars needed work? I know that back then they didn't have as much disposable income as we do today, so how did they pay for their new mufflers, carburetors and broken air conditioning systems? I can't believe that British peasants of the middle ages were okay with the auto repair price fixing that we've come to terms with in the 21st century. Perhaps the Norman Invasion was really just a bunch of people looking for a cheaper place to get their cars repaired? Do you suppose that Richard III was really just pissed off over some car repairs gone bad? And I read on the internet somewhere that Joan of Arc was actually rebelling against the outrageous prices of transmissions, especially when she found out that the price is primarily labor as the parts themselves only cost a few hundred bucks.
     But, again, I'm grateful for my savings account. I have the money stashed away, though I'd really prefer to spend it on an Asian getaway. I want to... oops... Neil just called for me to pick up my car. I'll continue this later.....




     Neil promised me he'd keep the total under a predetermined amount, but he went over by $57.00, so he chopped that off. That was nice. As I was pulling out of the garage he rushed over and told me that yesterday was his and Kathleen's anniversary. They reminisced how I did her hair for the wedding. I have virtually no memory of that but I assume that it happened.