See the S car go

The management, namely yours truly, apologizes for the lack of bloggity lately, mostly due to an attack of RL and second, because I hurt my shoulder and back last week doing something not too interesting (use your imagination; I guarantee you, it will be more exotic than reality) and typing really, really hurt. But now I'm back, in mostly pristine condition, which is more than I can say about my car.

My car is at about 55,000 miles right now, which is pretty good for a car I bought in December of 1998. But that also means I'm 5,000 miles short of that magical number when my car allegedly is going to just disintegrate into a pile of spark plugs and timing belts and radiator fluid. Every time I go to the mechanic, he has this uncanny ability to just reduce me to a pile of goo (similar to what you might see beneath a car leaking radiator fluid, incidentally). He points out things, very casually, and says, "You're going to have to think about getting those OGEIJOIU done and by the way, that's gonna cost you $200 and while we're changing that, your factory manual says you should probably get FUEDNLIJ done too, and that'll be about $500."

The last trip to the mechanic was to get my car inspected. My car failed. For the first time ever. I ended up having to get new brake pads and windshield wipers -- minor things, incidentally -- but along the way, two different mechanics at two different shops managed to just completely unnerve me with a list of stuff that was going wrong. I was thinking the whole time, "I bought a Japanese car specifically so I wouldn't have to deal with misbehaving calipers or ornery water pumps." I went home and had a nervous breakdown and then I decided I needed to get me to an automotive class.

So I'm taking a class on Wednesday nights for the next month or so. The first class was yesterday (the 'survival' or 'basics' class was several weeks ago). The teacher passed around a shock absorber and said, "This is really easy to replace." The thing weighed as much as I do; there was no way I was replacing my own shock absorber. Then he's going on and on about changing your own oil, about replacing your own brake pads, about unscrewing bolts and replacing struts -- the list goes on and on. To hear him talk, my entire car is held together with just two bolts; no wonder the thing is going to just fall apart at 60,000 miles.

This coming class, we're supposed to work on our own cars. He gave us a list of tools we should have, including something called a spark plug socket. He also had an order list if we wanted to buy tools in preparation for the class. I was thinking of multiple uses for say, a hammer, which would make the purchase of a hammer worthwhile, but a spark plug socket? Let's be realistic. The chances of me climbing under my own car and changing out a strut is statistically nil. And you people know how I am in the kitchen and when it comes to assembling furniture, well, you know how that turns out. And this guy wants me to remove the wheels of my car and work on the brake system? Um, no?