too close for comfort

I despise car repairs. Especially with older vehicles where I'm not the original owner and have no clue what was done repair-wise and what was not.

Every time I need my car fixed, I feel like I'm getting raped. See, I have no clue about the inner workings of a car's engine and other systems. About all I can do on my own is check the various fluid levels and add more when needed. So when I take the car into the shop, they could tell me just about anything is wrong with it and I'd probably believe them.

At this time and in this place, I drive a crappy green 2000 Chevy Lumina that had just over 100,000 miles on it when I bought it. I've owned this beast since December 2007 and for the most part have had no problems with it. Until about a month or so ago when my brakes started squeaking. I also started to hear a horrible sound coming from the engine area. Since my engine seemed to be loud, I thought I might have a hole in the exhaust system somewhere.

Last Friday, on my way to pick up V and M after work, I had some time before I was scheduled to meet them, so I pulled in to a local repair chain at which I've had work done before on other vehicles I've owned. I've felt in the past that they've treated me fairly and haven't gouged me too badly.

I knew I had multiple things wrong with the new beast and went in telling them what I suspected was wrong. They told me they could do a full check of the car and tell me everything that they found that needed attention, eventually, listing the most critical things first.

I told the guy behind the counter that I'd have to tackle the repairs in chunks for budgetary reasons and I asked him what the most critical repair was and how much it would cost. Turns out the price he quoted me was exactly 77 cents more than what I had in my checking account.

Good thing this Friday is payday.

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I've started watching season one of two old television shows that I bought on DVD recently. One show I watched sporadically when it first aired and the other show I never watched at all but always wanted to see what the hype was about. The first show made its debut in 1982 and the second show made it's debut in 1992. What were the names of these shows? For now, I'll keep that to myself. Don't worry, I'll tell you what they are one of these days. In fact I think I'll watch a few episodes of one of these shows before I go to sleep for the night.