Narrow escapes

Hm.  When I wrote the title, I’m pretty sure I had at least two narrow escapes in mind.  Right now I can only thing of one (the near-accident from last Friday).  Maybe it’ll come to me.

I took my car to the mechanic yesterday because the serpentine belt was making noise and I wanted to have the alignment checked.  I mentioned my curb attack to the guy while he was checking out the car, told him I hit it pretty hard, but when I looked I didn’t see any obvious damage.  After one look at the front driver’s side tire, he was like, “Oh no,  lady, you did some damage.”  There was a lump the size of a baseball on the sidewall of the tire.  Apparently, that’s like a ticking time bomb.  The tire was still holding air, but I guess that kind of swelling is just waiting to pop at the most inopportune time.  So I got two new tires yesterday (and they fixed my alignment).  We said goodbye to just under $400.  I also got an estimate for $430 dollars to replace the belt, the idler pulley, and the tensioner (the noisy culprits) AND apparently I need to replace my rear brakes for only another $300.  John looked up the belt parts – we can get those for $75.  He’ll do that work.  The brakes we might consider having them do.  That’s much more annoying to do ourselves.

Car stuff is expensive.  But we’ll live.  More importantly, so will the car.

Maybe the other narrow escape was avoiding spending over $1000 on the car in one day?  I’m not sure.

4 Comments

  1. Burn it with fire

    I, too, had a narrow escape this morning. I was driving, and saw something move out of the corner of my eye on the sun screen. I glanced up, and it was a huge spider about 6 inches from my eyes – a pale white sucker, almost translucent, so I could see each of his 8 beady, malevolent eyes.

    Like any mature, worldly man with a young child in the back seat, I screamed like a little girl and swerved hysterically for a few minutes before settling into a new driving position, leaning to the right with arms fully extended.

    My enemy slowly made his way left toward my window, and sensing a opportunity to eject him from the car, I opened the window an inch or so and quickly blew a puff at him hoping to force him into the swirling vortex of rushing air that would carry him to his ultimate doom beneath the rushing wheels of my fellow motorists. Alas, my sudden movement alerted him and he sprung before the air left my lips. In slow motion, I saw him spring from the ceiling and fall between the door and my seat where he would be protected and I could no longer defend myself as he plotted his inevitable revenge.

    I need a new car.

  2. Margaret

    Was just listening to our wedding “march” song You’re in My Heart that you and John performed at our wedding and it made me think of you. Your version was lovely 🙂

  3. Zannah

    Greg, we might have a Camaro available soonish. But I can’t promise it doesn’t come with spiders.

    Margaret, thank you! I’m so glad you liked it (and still do). Someday, I’d like to watch that video. Preferably with you guys in sunny CA.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Are you a robot? Beep beep boop beep *