Clint, man of important words
Written on July 23, 2004 at 4:18 pm, by Mel
Some of you are familiar with Clint’s talent as a nighttime conversationalist. For those of you who are not, let me assure you that his daytime wit and charm continues long after he has fallen asleep. I often climb into bed after he’s drifted off to la-la land, and if I’m lucky, I get to hear part of what I’m sure is a very interesting dream. Last night’s admission was of particular amusment - so much so that I have added it to my list of favorite nighttime Clintisms, which I will present now.
1. “The Republicans and Democrats are skewing my queue!”
2. “Alright folks, we’ll begin our decent into O’Hare International in about 15 minutes so sit back and enjoy the bumpy ride.”
And finally, last nights particularly emotional revelation:
3. “The fractions got me here! The fractions took me there! Ohhhhhhh! The fractions!! The fractions got me here. No! Not the fractions again.”
The first two make a bit of sense when you consider that number 1 was spoken shortly after the 2000 elections and the second was within this last year of frequent travel. The meaning of the thrid is truly lost on me. Perhaps Clint himself will have some insights. If he has been working with fractions, this is the first I’ve heard of it. If you have any theories, or if you have knowledge of any medication that keeps one from talking in their sleep, let me know.
’till then,
Adidas
Something new…. and interesting
Written on July 13, 2004 at 7:11 pm, by Mel
I did something different today. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and have spent hours reading up on it, but today I finally did it. I colored my own hair. Now, coloring my hair is not different at all for me. In fact, if you were to ask me what my natural hair color was I would honestly have no idea. I think it’s a light brownish, reddish, with lots other weird colors (like black) mixed in - but I can’t be sure. I’ve wanted to go darker for a while but no stylist wants to do this. I’m really not sure why, but they always convince me to do blonde highlights - unless I want red, then everyone’s willing to do that. Red, I think, is a stylist’s favorite color because it fades so quickly you have to go back every two to three weeks to have it re-done. But I digress. I decided on Clairol Herbal Essences #62 - Cocoa Infusion which is described as a medium brown. I bought two boxes because my hair is really think, and it’s fairly long now so I thought it would be smart to make sure I had enough. After reading the directions and deciding to skip the allergy test and the strand test I set to work. The process is quite simple, but I did run into a couple of snags. Pouring the contents of bottle #1 into bottle #2 was simple, but after you combine, you must Place gloved finger over applicator tip and shake until the mixture is totally blended. Sounds easy enough….. I shook those bottles (decided to mix both at the same time) for over 15 minutes and it still didn’t look “totally blended”. But since I’d shaken for a good amount of time I figured that it was probably as blended as it was going to get. In the end, this didn’t turn out to be any kind of problem. What was a bit of a problem was getting all of my hair saturated with this stuff. I sectioned off my hair and worked with one section at a time, but I think I should have made more sections. I used over half of the second bottle because I kept looking for missed spots. I found a lot of missed spots. In the end, confident that every inch of my hair was coated in a a nice brown goo, I loosely piled my hair on top of my head and waited. After 30 minutes, I hopped into the shower. There is one thing that no one tells you about this step - when the water hits your head, the color flies all over that shower. I spent 10 extra minutes in there just washing down the walls and shower curtain. It was a mess. After blow drying it and putting on some makeup, I am pretty happy with the results. The only problem is that either A. some of my hair refused to accept this new color. or B. Despite my checking and re-checking, I missed a couple of spots. None of these “spots” are that bad, of course it’s kind of hard to make that determination on my own. I’m guessing I can wait a week and then re-apply color to the missed spots if it still seems necessary. The color of my hair is considerably darker than the picture on the front of the box. I would describe this as more a very dark brown…. chocolate might be closer. It’s different, I don’t think my hair has ever been this color before. My hair is pretty soft and smells nice - it even smelled good while the color was on there. Coloring my own hair was an interesting experience. The last time my hair was made a different color in my home was back in 1992 just before christmas. A friend helped me with it and while it was supposed to turn out a sandy blonde color, I remember it being more of a gross brass color. I wasn’t fond of it - about 4 months later this same friend set me up on a blind date with my now ex-husband. We’re no longer friends.
BTW: I’m still reading Atlas Shrugged, it’s got me interested, I just haven’t had much time to read. Hopefully, I’ll have more time this week.
’till then,
Cheers!
Who is John Galt? sigh, I’m not sure I care.
Written on July 8, 2004 at 3:25 pm, by Mel
I always feel kind of lazy whenever I fill out one of those “Getting to know you” questionaires because they always ask the dreaded question; “What are your hobbies?”. Sometimes I consider lying just to make myself more interesting, but I end up jotting down the same boring answers.
I enjoy reading, watching movies, and spending time with friends.
I guess I could add sewing to the list, but I don’t know if that’s really a hobby. I would prefer my answer to look like this:
I enjoy snow skiing, rock climbing, ice sculpture, fight club, and am a member of the Vidocq Society.
But no…. instead, I read and watch movies and then talk about my most recent mental adventures with other people who are also not members of the Vidocq Society.
At any rate, reading is my main hobby and I guess it’s a pretty decent one to have. Recently, I’ve read some books I normally wouldn’t have bothered with. For ages, I only read classics and newer books by certain authors. So in between Stienbeck and Dickens, I would indulge myself with a nice, hollow Michael Crichton or Tony Hillerman book. I know neither Crichton nor Hillerman are exceptional authors. Both of them write one book over and over again. I’ll sum up for you in case you’ve never read one of their books.
Every Michael Crichton fiction novel: Science minded people invent something new and remarkable. The something new and remarkable does something unexpected resulting in a crisis. Science minded people spend the rest of the book trying to control said crisis and the world is saved at the very last second.
Every Tony Hillerman fiction novel: Navajo Tribal police officers investigate a crime that to them and all the locals, at first, appears to be related to supernatural activity. Upon further investigation (usually by Jim Chee or Joe Leaphorn), a logical explanation is uncovered, arrests are made, and everyone is just as miserable as they were in the beginning.
Despite the seemingly repetitive nature of both these authors, I truly enjoy almost everything they write. Recently, I realized that surely others are writing good, even spectacular, fiction as we speak. It started when a friend loaned me a copy of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I read it and loved it. It was really quite good - one of the better books I’d read in the last 5 years. So I started looking at the bestsellers list, and the “Popular Fiction” displays at my local bookstore. My quest for good, recent fiction has been mostly successful. Life of Pi by Yann Martel was fantastic, as was A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. I was a bit dissapointed in The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (good story, but not the greatest writer) and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (again, great story but would have been much better in the hands of a more competent author). The real gem in all of this has been Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. This book was simply fantastic and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a book as much as this one. If you haven’t read it, I can’t recommend it enough. Unless you don’t read too good, then you should pick up the audiobook…. or maybe just skip it altogether. I also picked up his The Virgin Suicides which was also very well written, though not as enjoyable as Middlesex. So after the Eugenides books, I know the next book will most likely suck. That is why I have chosen Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as my next undertaking. And undertaking is likely to be an understatement. This book is 1069 pages long and with a much smaller font size than what you normally see in a mass market paperback. I’m guessing I’ll have to put in at least 2 weeks of reading to get through this one. I know this book is considered important and I’ve known many people who think it’s one of the greatest books ever written. Unfortunately, I’ve disliked a great many of these people who deem it required reading. I admit, the back cover isn’t overly inspiring.
The astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world - and did.
It goes on to tell me that this book is tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense. The breathtaking part sounds pretty good, but tremendous in scope? I’m not liking the sound of that… maybe 3 weeks is more realistic. I am going to try to enjoy it. This book is promising to answer the immortal query “who is John Galt?”. Personally, until I read the back cover, I didn’t know that was a question that was supposed to haunt me. Maybe after I read the book it will. Time will tell, it might be really fantastic. I’m 21 pages into it and I haven’t tried to hang myself with a leather belt yet. If you’ve read this book, let me know what you thought. I might give up on it and move on to something less tremendous. At any rate, I’ll be back in 2 to 3 weeks to give my final word on it. Not that my final word is definitive, but I figure if you’ve read this whole post you deserve to know how it went.
‘Til then,
Cheers!
People never cease to amaze me
Written on June 23, 2004 at 7:10 pm, by Mel
I recieved a phone call today from Billie. This is not unusual and was actually the third call so far today (in fairness one was her returning my call), but this particular call was good enough for me to break my month-long hiatus from posting. Before I tell you what the call was about, let me give a bit of pertinent info.
Our home in Arkansas is for sale and the listing agent is none other than Billie’s mom, Debbie, hence her sign is in the front yard.
We pay a guy to mow the lawn once a week.
Debbie called me last week to ask me if it was okay to let said lawn guy do some tree trimming and such for an additional charge (I said yes).
Ok, I will now present the story I heard just a bit ago.
Earlier today Debbie found out that a woman had come by her office to see her. This woman had a bill from a dealership for replacing a side mirror. This woman claimed that she was driving down my street and that a branch ripped off her side mirror. She was dropping this bill of so that she could be reimbursed by me for this. This bill was for $37.00. Debbie went to her broker to see how she should handle this problem. He told her to let it go as there was no way to prove that the mirror was ripped of by my tree limb and even if there was, since it was a public road I would not be liable.
So Debbie didn’t call the woman back and instead told Billie about it who called me. That’s the end of the story. Unremarkable I know, but this story brings up a few questions.
1. How did this person come into contact with a branch from my tree? The tree is trimmed and since yard waste is picked up in the alley, there shouldn’t have been limbs sitting on the curb. Did they drive into my yard? Is their vehicle equipped with one of those power boosters a la Arthur Weasley from Harry Potter lore that made it possible to propel their car 10 feet off the ground in order to connect with the top of my tree? Speaking of magic, maybe my tree is alive like the apple trees in the Wizard of Oz and it reached out and grabbed the side mirror in an act of aggression.
2. How did a tree limb manage to rip a side mirror off of a vehicle? The only tree in my yard is a Sweet Gum tree, and anyone who has ever had one of these knows that this type of tree has branches that can be broken by a light wind. There is no way that one of these branches ripped anything from a passing car. If they had driven their car into my yard and side-swiped the Sweet Gum, the trunk could have knocked it off… but that’s the only way.
3. Who would try to get reimbursed for $37.00? It’s not like that’s a lot of money… this is a trip to Applebee’s or Friday’s…. My embarrassment over hitting a tree in someone’s yard would keep me from ever trying to get the owner of the tree to repay me for my mistake.
So in closing, Wayne V*****y (I’ve edited the name on the bill to protect the moronic), count yourself lucky that it only cost $37.00 - that’s a small price to pay for hitting a tree, or making up a story, or being in cahoots with the Devil himself (ok, only one person who reads this blog will get that one, but I might be able to increase that number by a couple more if I mention that the bill was from Reeder-Simco, though if the Devil himself were involved the bill would have been more like $3700.00).
In other news, the gallery has been updated with pictures from my semi-recent trip to Arkansas. I may someday post about the events that transpired on this trip. Someday when I’m heavily medicated and not likely to say mean things about people. But it will most likely focus heavily on the merits of a soon to be legendary band called Sticky Hungwell and the Blowup Dolls (and my father who wants it made clear that he is not a member of this band and only “sits in” with them every time they play a gig and every Sunday for practice), and the dangers of guns, and how I came to love a dog that represents everything I hate about small dogs, and not so much about people who inspire me to never return to Arkansas again.
’till then, cheers!
A Good Day
Written on May 25, 2004 at 3:38 am, by Mel
Today has been a good day. Mostly. I would like to note that I am not posting because of my husband’s post - I just happen to have something to say.
Good thing #1:
So this morning I went to a new doctor. Actually, I went to a nurse practitioner because I couldn’t get in to see the doc ’till July but they got with me with the np because of my special circumstances. Those circumstances are that we’re trying to get pregnant and pregnant women create a lot more revenue than women merely wanting pap smears. This is only a guess - I just know that when I say “well, see my husband and I are really trying to get pregnant and I’d really like to get something sooner” all of the sudden, appointments not previously available are magically open to me. So anyway, I went to the np and it was a lovely meeting. I found that my doc in Arkansas may not have been on the cutting edge of fertility treatment and I now have many tests - I think you could say a “battery of tests” to look forward to. It seems that the good people at the Swedish Medical Center are quite committed to getting me pregnant. My parents were both quite moved by the mention of the word “Swedish” in conjuction with my plans to make them grandparents. My father said, “ehhh…. hmmm….. hehe…. ehhh…. those Swedish people know a lot about baby making.” And my mother said, “Oooohhh, the Swedes are on the cutting edge of fertility.” I really don’t know what either of them were talking about but both seemed dissappointed that out of all the people I encountered, none of them were actually from Sweden. But anyway, it was a promising experience and I think that someday Clint and I might actually manage to produce little people with good hair and a flair for computers.
Good thing #2:
Those who know have talked to us since we moved have no doubt heard us speak of Wayne the Maintenance Man. And you know that he is crazy - not in an amusing way…. crazy in a scary way. Well two weeks ago Sunday we saw him and he reported that he had recieved some bad news but didn’t want to “burden” us with it. He was obviously expecting us to encourage him to tell us so that we might give him a beer, or three, and provide some sympathy. Well, we didn’t encourage him - we just said “oh, that sucks” and then went inside. I know that sounds heartless, but you don’t know this person. A couple of days later he came by our apartment to try and get me to take some crap that he found in some empty apartment and he also mentioned that he knew that Billie was coming here in a day or two (He *really* likes Billie). On around Sunday (last Sunday) we realized that we had not seen Wayne in a few days. Clint noted that Wayne’s car was not in his parking space. By Wednesday I started to get excited. I hadn’t seen Wayne in a week. We thought maybe he had quit, or gotten fired, or just left in the middle of the night. Regardless, I had been hapily Wayne-free for an entire week. I still have not seen him. Today, as I drove into our crappy apartment complex I saw the following things:
- A car I did not recognized parked in Wayne’s space.
The front door of Wayne’s apartment standing open.
A man I’ve never seen before standing in front of said apartment with a box.
It was a clear sign - Wayne is gone. Now, don’t mistake me, I wish no harm or distress upon the man. I’m just relieved to think that I might not have to worry about him getting drunk and yelling outside our apartment, leaving random junk on my doorstep, dropping by asking if we have any beer, rejecting invitations to accompany him to bars where he will just get very drunk and try to fight Clint, and a variety of other offenses we’ve dealt with over the last few months.
So it seems my day was going quite well… then.. the best thing happened.
Good thing #3:
As I pulled into my designated parking space next to the burgundy Buick belonging to our despicable neighbors I saw something confusing on the patio of our repulsive, crack-head neighbors. It looked like a bunch of white towles lying on the ground. I make it a point not to look at their apartment too long so I came inside and went upstairs. From my upstairs window I saw the following things on the patio of the evil neighbors (whom I hate in case you weren’t aware):
- Cardboard boxes, several.
White packing paper, tons.
Trash bags, full of junk
This could only mean one thing - They Are Moving
And I’d be willing to bet they’re moving soon. These don’t seem like the kind of people who are overly prepared. Oh Joy! I can quit smoking now! I can enjoy my outdoors now! I can stop grumbling about basketballs landing in my flowers! I can also, with any luck, never hear a converstation I’ve been hearing from their front door since I moved here:
*Ding Dong*
Inside manly voice: Na man, she asleep.
Outside voice: Fo real? She asleep?
Inside manly voice: Ya man, she asleep.
Outside voice: Fo real? She asleep? It fo o’clock in da noon.
Inside manly voice: Ya man, she asleep.
Outside voice: Fo real?
Inside manly voice: Ya man, fo real.
This can go on for up to 10 minutes… and I swear I am not making this up.
So today shaped up to be a pretty good day. The only bad part of it was when my father detailed his recent kidney stone debacle in which many euphenisms for vomit were used. Alright, one this high note, I’m going to bed. I must get up early tomorrow so as to have enough time to make an angel food cake for Clint (he’s 24 tomorrow).
What the heck??
Written on May 5, 2004 at 9:32 pm, by Mel
PSYCHIC GIRL! Possession Protectors
This has got to be a sign of the world coming to end. For just $30 you can get a little charm to protect your possessions - Am I the only one wondering why Kali, Buddha, or Jesus for that matter would be interested in protecting your wallet or palm pilot? Maybe if you’re really tight with Jesus he might watch out for your luggage, but I’m guessing if that were the case, you wouldn’t really need a little picture of him dangling from a ring to get him to help out.
Sheesh……
Sunrise
Written on May 3, 2004 at 10:34 am, by Mel
Believe it or not, one of my favorite things to do is to sit outside with a cup of hot tea and watch the sun come up. I rarely get to do this on good terms. Usually, the events leading to such a treat are unfavorable at best. I can think of only a few times when I’ve seen the sun come up under the right circumstances. A few times when I was a kid, my family drove from Southern California to Arkansas to see my Dad’s family for a couple of weeks during the summer. These trips were fairly exhausting as my father does not believe in silly things like stopping at a hotel for the night. No, we drove all day, right through the night, and through the next day. We stopped for gas and food - and little else. Despite the rushed nature of the journey, the insaity of my dad’s family, my inability to sleep in a moving car, and the fact that my sister suffers from accute motion sickness, there were certain elements of these trips that were fantastic. One such element was stopping for gas in the middle of the night. When we’d stop for gas during the day it was an inconvenience. The truck stops were hot, they were dirty, they were crawling with people and the smell of gasoline was sickening. But at night, these same places transformed into something magical. No longer were they crowded - only the most devoted travelers and Knights of the Highways were to be seen. No longer were they dirty - cleaning crews had swept away the day’s mess and no one was awake yet to litter it up again. The temperature was still high, but without the sun they seemed almost chilly. And the smell of the gas… I’ll swear to my dying day that fluorescent lighting combined with moonlight and a light breeze must cause a chemical reaction that makes gasoline smell positively divine. These trips also provided me with my first sight of the phenomenon that is lightening bugs. Once, while making a rare stop for the night in some small Oklahoma town, I spied some fuzzy lights in a field across the highway. I spent the rest of the evening catching lightening bugs with my mom and dad - some were placed in glass jar. They died the next day - quite dissappointing, but amusing nonetheless. There were other things I liked about these trips. I liked being cooped up with my family for 32 hours straight, I liked the glowing lights of semi’s parked for the night at a rest stop, but most of all, I liked watching the sun come up. Because I didn’t really get any sleep on these trips, in the early morning, I usually got the front seat, while my mom, and later my sister, slept in the back. It always seemed that we managed to time our trip so that we were driving through New Mexico in the early morning. I can’t think of anything I’ve seen that has rivaled the beauty of the sun rising over the mountians in New Mexico. I know to many people, the desert is an ugly place. But to me, it’s an empty canvas, and an empty canvas holds endless possibility. Nothing illustrates this like a sunrise. When the sun rises in a city, the only colors you see are in the sky - up above. In the desert when the sun rises, you see every color imaginable all around. It’s breathtaking. My mother used to tell me a story about Father Sky and how he had this beautiful quilt of deep reds and oranges and golds. In the evening he gathered up his quilt to prepare for bed and that was the sunset. In the morning, when he awoke, he threw off his quilt and shook it out to prepare for day. And that’s what the sunrise is - a huge, gloriously colorful quilt. I think of this story every time I’m up at the break of dawn. Even if I’m up due to some unpleasant circumstance such as I haven’t yet fallen asleep, I enjoy the sunrise immensely. This morning. I got out of bed around 5am because I knew that I wasn’t going to fall asleep. I got up, went downstairs, made myself a cup of tea, and realized as I glanced out the window, that the sun was just about to make its appearance. I went outside thinking that later I would sit down and post something about how irritated I am with this whole not sleeping thing. As soon as that blanket of reds and golds starting spreading out all around me my entire mood changed - I thought myself quite lucky to witness such an event. So what started out as an idea to vent my frustrations has ended as a fond recollection of the delicate odor of moonlit gas stations, the awe of bugs with light bulbs in their asses, and the beginning of my love of an everyday occurance that I don’t get to see as often as I’d like.
Haha! I rule.
Written on April 23, 2004 at 7:58 pm, by Mel
Ok, maybe this is a lame thing to be proud of but last night I did something I’ve only done once before. I beat a game. It has taken almost a year (I have taken lots and lots of breaks), but I finally beat The Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker. The last game I beat was Super Mario Bros - pathetic I know. I’m not really into games, but Zelda has always been a favorite. I’ve played all but the 4th one (I hear I didn’t miss much) but this is the first one I’ve beaten. I know that other people finish these things all the time, but I am not one of these people. Some of you have witnessed my game playing firsthand, and to those who have seen it, I’m betting you are actually pretty impressed right now. Once, one of my friends (you know who you are) and myself had a conversation while I was playing Tony Hawk. It went like this:
Me: “Am I the worst you’ve ever seen?”
Unnamed Friend: “Uhhh… yeah.”
Me: “But there’s hope right? I mean, I can get better can’t I?”
Unnamed Friend: “No, you’re just not good at this.”
Thankfully, I have other skills to fall back on. But back to the point, I just want to let the world know that on April 23rd at about 1:30 am, I, Melanie Sharp, beat a game.
Oscilloscope
Written on April 22, 2004 at 8:02 pm, by Mel
I admit up until very recently, I had never heard of an oscilloscope. Apparently this is an indispensable tool to many different professions, but I have only an automotive appreciation of them. Just in case you didn’t know, an oscilloscope draws a graph of electrical signals - in the world of cars, it measures the vibrations of an engine.
How fantastic. Even more fantastic is the fact that this little thing which I imagine looks like one of those tin-foiled boxes mad scientists always display in thier labs, didn’t fix my car. Why, if it had nothing to do with the fixing of my car, am I bringing it up? Quite simply because it’s a cool word and I was impressed when I found out that the wonderful people at Downtown Seattle Nissan Service Center had used one to try and diagnose my car’s problem. You notice that I have described the people who had my car very differently from my last entry. That is because my car is fixed. After 3 days, they finally figured out that the problem was with my Mass Air Flow Sensor. I’m very happy to have my car back in my possession, and even more happy to have my car running properly. I’m willing to accept that my initial impression of these folks was wrong. I still don’t think the guy who doesn’t know the difference between a Sentra and a Maxima is a very good image for their business. But he’s not a mechanic so I guess it’s ok. I’m also very impressed with the reciept they gave me. When I’ve taken my car to other places my reciept always looks like a mess of indecipherable codes. Codes that give me no inidcation of what actually went on with my car or what exactly I paid for. Not so with the reciept sitting in front of me now. This one has info - informative info even. I’ll transcribe a portion.
LABOR…………………………………………………………446.75
Customer states it has no power. Ck for restricted exhaust or possible trans.
Road tested and verified customers concern.
Hooked up to the scanner and ckd for codes. None.
Put the fuel pressure guage on it and was ok.
Drove with guage on to see if the pressure would go down. Was ok.
Put a vacuum guage on it and drove it to see if the vac would drop. Was ok.
Put the scanner on again and ckd the MAF sensor and got a good reading.
Called the Techline and they recommended a new MAF sensor anyway.
Took a used MAF off of a used car and tried it. Ran fine.
Ordered a new MAF and installed.
Test drove.
ALL OK NOW.
Isn’t that beautiful? Especially the last line. ALL OK NOW.
I wish that they had used the word “oscilloscope” instead of “scanner” in their detailed log, but I guess one can’t have everything.
I should have bought a Honda.
Written on April 19, 2004 at 5:22 pm, by Mel
I, like most people, have a love/hate relationship with my car. My car symbolizes freedom to me. And it’s mine - all mine, 100% mine. Actually that’s a lie, it’s more like 27% mine and 63% Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation. But still, they don’t get to drive it. I like to be in my car more than any other car. Unless I had a friend with a Porsche 168 Cabriolet (red with grey leather interior)…. but I digress. I really like my car - except when it’s sick. Which recently has been the rule rather than the exception. Whenever there’s something wrong with it I get very angry and agitated and I always think the same thing - I should have bought a Honda. Yes, instead of my Nissan Maixima, I should have purchased a nice, reliable Honda. I thought the same thing when I had my Volkswagen Jetta and found out that you have to involve an authorized dealer in simple little tasks such as replacing a battery because almost everything you do the car requires the resetting of a button. A button that can only be located and pressed by an expert in the art of German Kraftfahrzeuge. A button that costs $100 to press. I didn’t have the same thoughts about the car before the Jetta - because it was a Honda Civic. It was the best car I ever had. I never had to take it in for servcie - I don’t recall even taking it to get it’s oil changed. It ran perfectly and I loved it. But one day I saw a really nifty Jetta commercial and had to run right down to the dealer and buy a shiny new Jetta with bright blue dashboard lights. Before the Honda I had a Ford Probe with retractable headlights that were very good about retracting into the hood and not very good about retracting back out. Before that there was a Ford Tempo that I have mostly blocked from my memory and before that, another Honda. The first Honda I ever owned was a punishment car - punishment for missing a stop sign and running my Ford Escort (my first car) into an off-dury narcotics detective and totaling both cars. But that first Honda was great. It got over 50 miles to the gallon (I’m not joking) and despite it’s being shit brown in color, it was not at all a piece of shit. It didn’t look too pretty but it ran like a new car and never ever had to be serviced. I didn’t buy a Honda this last time because while I knew it would be a solid investment, Brian the Nissan saleman mentioned that Hondas aren’t very exciting. He was right and I never considered a Honda after that. So here I am sitting at home and as I look out the second floor window of our crappy apartment, I see no Maxima. My Maxima is in the shop, again. We thought it was a fuel filter problem. So this morning we found ourselves at the dealer ready to check my sick car in for service. This is where I start getting angry. First, the gentelman who checked us in was wearing a tie. I don’t want to talk about fuel injectors and lagging with a man in a tie. I tried to be hopeful, but all hope was lost when after going outside to copy some numbers off of my car he said, “Ok, so we have a Sentra.” Excuse me? A Sentra? I don’t have a Sentra, I have a Maxima. Clint later tried to convince me that since the man sees these cars all day long he can’t tell the difference. Bullshit. If anyone should be able to distinguish a Maxima from a Sentra it should be an employee of a Nissan dealership. After that I mentioned that my Service Engine Soon light had come on several times (even after I had it serviced in late 2003) and that I was under the impression that this was a light that came on at certain milleage marks and that maybe it just needed to be reset.
“No, there are no automatic lights on Nissans.”
I guess he thought he was selling me a new car, he then proceeded to explain, “Sometimes when you don’t get your gas cap screwed on all the way that light will come on.” Ok, so for a long time I was able to properly secure my gas cap and then all of the sudden I lost the ability to close a lid? That makes sense. After a bit more disucssion with a man who should never, ever be allowed to talk to someone with service questions he said, “Ok, we have your car in for fuel injector cleaning and I’ve noted that the Check Engine light has been coming on.”
Trying very hard not to shout, I looked him in the eye and said, “NO! The Service Engine Soon light has been coming on, not the Check Engine light.”
Here is what he said, and he was serious when he said it, “It’s all the same to us.”
I own a car that not screwing a gas cap tightly enough causes the Check Engine light to come on?
I should have bought a freaking Honda.
So here I sit, Clint called me a bit ago to inform me that he had talked to the service department. They cleaned my fuel injectors but the problem remains. According to Jim the service department guy, my injectors were very dirty. Sure they were. Now they think it’s an emissions problem. That sounds expensive to me. This is the point at which as my mother would say, “I have a radio on wheels”. Except that back a few months ago, my speakers started making funny noises and haven’t been the same since. I know next to nothing about speakers - but whatever is wrong with them makes listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers almost impossible. Oh, and did I mention that the CD player scratches CD’s? I’m going to leave it at that… I think I’ll spend the rest of my day’s pricing another car…. maybe this time I really should buy a Honda.