Monday, October 25, 2010

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Brake Pad

We're having a problem with progressive repairs.

It all started with J's recent purchase of a manual 1993 Volvo 240.  J was giddy with excitement.  It was an opportunity to be both a car geek and have a road trip with his best friend.  All in all, one happy husband.  However, J's current ride, a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta diesel, got its feelings hurt.  We have been cursing this vehicle for quite some time, as it consistently needs SOMEthing fixed.  It had been quiet for a little while, but we believe it was because it was planning its passive aggressive revenge.  As soon as the purchase of the Volvo went through, the Jetta's check engine light came on.  This was on top of the new brake pads it was asking for.  Apparently, something complicated--the name of which I cannot remember--needs to be replaced in the engine.  It will mean work for J before we can sell the Jetta.  Sigh.

Saturday morning, full of misplaced optimism, J donned his grease monkey clothes and headed out the door to get to work on the Jetta.  The sooner it's fixed, the sooner we can sell it, after all.  There were a few things that J had to do in order to get ready to work on the VW.  One of them was moving my car.

Herein lay the first problem.

My car would not start.  Without moving my car, there was no working on J's.  (And there's the pesky problem of my car not working).

Grumbling, J started the work necessary to diagnose the problem with my car.  Several complex operations later, J determined that there was a problem with the fuel pump.  This is problematic because he must shift the fuel tank (which I just recently filled to the brim and therefore weighs about 100 pounds) in order to reach the pump.  Not work that he wanted to do.  So, we'll contract that out.  But, he decided that since the car was already jacked up, he might as well fix the suspension issue that he's been meaning to take care of for a while.

J the fired up his air compressor for the air tools necessary to work on the suspension.  And he blew the fuse in the garage.  We've been having some electricity issues in the garage, and knew we would have to call an electrician, but we didn't know it was quite so bad.  But apparently the garage cannot handle the juice necessary to run the air compressor.

As it stands right now, we need to call an electrician to fix the electric in the garage to fire up the air compressor to fix the suspension to call the mechanic to tow the car to move the Jetta to replace the brake pads and fix the engine to sell the VW.  All together now:  I don't know why, she swallowed the fly...perhaps she'll die!

I'm scared to death to discover what problem the electrician will find.  Will we have finally eaten the horse?

I'm also starting to understand how individuals end up with cars on cinder blocks on their front yards.

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