I'D SEND THEM A BILL...

...but they'd probably just laugh and throw it away...

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One of the roads that leads to my door is unpaved. A couple of years ago, it had some pretty nasty 'road divots', but someone got busy with their earthmover, scooping and repositioning dirt, and the surface was nice and flat again. For a while. Earlier this year, the road again began to re-acquire divots (I'd say 'pothole' but a dirt road can't have a pothole...right?), and for a while, I was able to navigate the car up and over the holes that were threatening to swallow my car. Well, on one such journey, either the potholes (dirtholes?) had gotten bigger, or I didn't steer the car just right, and, WHUMP!!! It sounded as if my car had been impaled. The left front tire hit bottom and the rest of my car followed. I was able to keep going and didn't think too much about the incident after a while.

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Well, a few weeks ago, I noticed the car was getting a bit harder to steer. Where did the power steering go? And what good is it to have the "power steering" feature when it takes more and more power to steer? I had a perfectly functioning power steering unit that wasn't power-steering! But I grew to accept it. "Old Car with a lotta miles; hey, it gets me from point A to point B" and other generalized ways of procrastinating firmly embedded themselves within the vast unpopulated regions of my Cranial Cavity. So another few weeks went by. Finally, coming out of some store somewhere, going back to the car, I looked at the left front tire, and, you guessed it, there was major wear on the outside edge of the tread, and I thot of the dreaded "A" word, as in "Alignment", or in this case, The Lack Thereof. As it turns out, it was a fairly severe case of The Lack Of Any Kind Of Correct Alignment.

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To make a long story short, I'm $300-dollars poorer this evening after the date I had made earlier today with the Tire Company. They fixed the alignment, then put two new tires on the front, the 'best two' of my 'old' tires on the back, and stuffed in my back seat in a big yellow plastic bag is the Tire that, had I not waited so long to get the alignment checked, I'd still be using today. I asked the Tire Company if they could put the old, worn tire on a wheel so I could have a full-sized spare instead of the little Tricycle-sized spare tire that came with my car...the tire company said, "well, we can't do that because the tread is so worn down." What must be asked at this point is, what will get you down the road more easily; a worn-down full-size tire, or a teeny-weeny little spare tire, the diameter of which approximates your average Dinner Plate? And, should I send the city a bill, since it was THEIR road that resulted in my automotive malaise in the first place? Nah, I'd probably get laughed out of the county.

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As if that weren't enough, recently, my drivers' side window began acting funny. I'd try to raise it and it would freeze, or make 'klunking' sounds during the raise/lower process. Finally, yesterday, SNAP!!! The window jumped its tracks and came forward. I'd just gotten it fixed last year! The only way I can (almost) close it is by pressing the "raise" button, while gripping the window with the other hand, pushing it back, all the while trying to raise the window so it looks like it's most-of-the-way closed. I drive a Dodge, so I went to the local Dodge Dealership, and the guy said, "well, it looks like you might need a new motor assembly; we've gotta take out the door lining and poke around in there; it'll cost you somewhere around $300-dollars once we can find the time to get to it." Now, hold on a minute, wait there, pod'ner, somethin' ain't right about this Stew of Viddles I've gotten myself into. I told the guy I'd explore my options and got outta there...

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I went back to the little but still fairly-expensive shop that fixed the window last year when it malfunctioned, and they said they could fix my window for a little over $100-dollars, (One-third the price of the big automotive dealership) and the little auto-repair shop, not the big automobile dealership, will be getting my business. Hopefully I won't have to go back to them next year for the same thing. I guess that's how I stay in touch with society anymore, emerging to obtain services or trying to keep everything all paid up. All of this, of course, came hot on the heels of the $500-plus dollars I paid yesterday, which cleared my account at the Denturist, so ladies, if you want guys with all their own teeth, well, My Teeth Are All Mine, and I've got the receipt to prove it.

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So anyway, if you've read this far (and it's not an easy read, I know), a reward awaits you; a little bit of eye candy. It's a photo which I've seen in a couple of different newspapers lately, and I thot it needed just a little bit of Touching Up...

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Finally, a little humor...very little...I spied a bumpersticker which utilizes an automotive theme and takes it to new heights; it read, "My Car is so filthy, that when it rains, it makes its own gravy."