Commitment

Well, I'm afraid I'm committed [again] to my car until death do us part (hopefully, the car's--not mine). I'm about to sink another several hundred into my hunk of red. And for what, you may ask? My air conditioner is the mainest thing. I have to replace the "temperature control assembly," they tell me, and no, it's not available at a junk yard. It all started when I cleaned my car out on Saturday. It was high time, as it had become a neglected college-student widow. Now we had paid extra to get a car cleaning kit included with our central vac back when we built the house. You think of all the quarters you're going to save by having the vac right there. And you just know you'll clean your car so much more often than you would if you had to go up to the car wash. So it was with a bit of guilt that I pulled the hose down and attached its attachments after many, many months of neglect. "Now, Kris," I said to myself. "Do not vacuum up any change, or the cost of the vacuum will just increase all the more." So I took much care, and it wasn't long until I was ready to vacuum out from under the emergency brake. I lifted it, vacuumed, and put it back down. The next day, as we were moseying on to church, I asked Sharon, "What is that noise?!?" We shut all extracurricular noises off and sure enough, there was this unidentified noise. I'm sure we looked a sight as we "laid" our heads in all sorts of precarious positions trying to determine the source from whence it came. There's nothing I hate more than to go into the mechanic and helplessly say, "Well, it's making this noise." We finally had to write it off as one of those mysteries you never find the answer to. On the way home from church is when the trouble intensified. Not only was the car making this noise, but it was also blowing out hot air out of the air conditioner. So we had to fiddle around with it, and in the course of human events, Sharon put the temperature from the cold side over to the hot side. And then couldn't get it back. Talk about toasty! That slider thing would NOT budge one teeny bit. We put all sorts of pressure on it, including taking Sharon's shoe to it. And it still wouldn't go to the cold side. We would pretend we weren't concerned about it, then sneak up on it from the back side, thinking just maybe it would've relaxed its grip. Not so.

So today, between class and work, I took the babe in to the Carspital. Getting into a HOT car just kind've makes the decision by itself. "It's making this noise," I said helplessly to the mechanic, "and boy, is it ever stuck." So they began the process to diagnose it. I took my algebra homework, sat by the window, and dedicated myself to the task for the next 40 minutes or so. They finally concluded I would have to replace the emergency brake cable and the temperature control assembly. With an oil change, it comes to a grand total of $600. So then I began the soul-searching. Am I really that committed to pay $600 on a car that's worth maybe $1200? They had to order the parts, so I had a while to think about it. In the end, after consulting Martin, I decided to skip the emergency brake cable [which I've never used before], and go ahead with the a/c. Driving a car around here without a/c is not an option, imho. It was bad enough driving it from Auto Pro to work in the heat of the day. "Just pretend you're Sharon," I kept mumbling to myself. Sharon enjoys a hot, windy car. Kris doesn't. So I guess I'm committed to the car for as long as it takes me to get my money's worth out of the thing.