I just need to bitch. In fact, I live to bitch. It’s how I de-stress.
So yesterday was the day I was supposed to get my leaky exhaust system fixed. When I dropped off my car, I mentioned oh by the way, a whining noise when I started up the car. He said he’d check it out.
Got a text an hour later. 1) Can’t do the exhaust, it’s falling apart, I have to take it somewhere they do welding. 2) The whining noise was the power steering pump and it’s $800, give or take a few bucks. So the money from the fund drive that was supposed to fix the exhaust goes to the pump.
The exhaust system? I will go to a shop in the dead center of the Kensington drug market, where I got a muffler welded on two cars ago. They only take cash, you have to get in line and wait your turn. It’s an assembly line. (I don’t like holding cash in that neighborhood but oh well.)
The last time I needed a catalytic converter, my BIL insisted I drive all the way out in Amish country to see his cheap muffler guy. It was an adventure. I remember there was a torrential downpour and I could hardly see the narrow, winding road — which made me just a little bit tense. (When the rain would pause, I could read all the shockingly vile and hateful anti-Biden roadside signs put up by the Amish farmers. Whatever happened to “Love thy neighbor”?)
Anyway, I finally got there. The entire trip from my house was two hours. The shop was clean and there were tables with all kinds of Mennonite religious pamphlets. It took less than 20 minutes. I never want to go back, the trip was too nerve-wracking.
I don’t know what the exhaust fix will cost (I can’t put it off much longer, the fumes are getting worse), but I suspect there won’t be much left to go to the dentist. I was really looking forward to getting at least one filling.
Like my Nana used to say, “I couldn’t move that pencil from here to there without something happening.”
