Well!
My parents came to town and brought me an early Yule present. It's a GPS unit. It was attached to a little black-blue car that we couldn't seem to scrape off, but I can live with that. \o/ The car is adorable. I'll have pictures later. ^_^ It's somewhat tiny but it gets good gas mileage (35 freeway for my father who's about twice my size). It's built for economy, I'm told. Not a lot of pick-up and go but it'll run forever... And there's enough room in the trunk and in the back for me to shove a few boxes of con gear into it and -go-. And... I have a GPS unit. ^-^ It's an expensive toy - probably a month's rent, all sleek and speaking. Very, very handy. I have the navigational skills of a stoned squirrel and while I'm legal for driving, my vision has never been great. Since the eye surgery, my ability to read street signs in less than perfect lighting has been.. iffy. So now when I'm going somewhere new, I'll tell the Unit and it'll tell me where to go and when to turn. <3 And when I get into a horrible accident, the satelite link will be able to find me.
My parents arrived in a hurry - they'd promised me dinner but they had to be back in Virginia by 9 am and they wanted to leave as soon as possible so they could get a good night's sleep before choosing the house they'll buy. They have, basically, this weekend to pick a house - they're moving in January. So... My lovely stepmother mentioned to my father that the breaks on their car had been making a weird noise (can you guess where this is going?) so my father opened up the wheel, took a look, and hiccuped. Somehow the pins that hold the caliper on had been -sheared- off completely. Nothing was holding it on but the wheel. Holy cow. And it's Thanksgiving! Who's going to be open on Thanksgiving?!
Faced with a disaster of this magnitude, we all did the responsible thing. We went and got dinner. Filled our bellies with food, my stepmother had a drink, and then we all trooped back. "Worse comes to worse," I said. "You take the little car up to Virginia and come back for the Explorer later, when the stores are open and you've dealt with this." This plan would add another 12 hours onto their driving plan so it wasn't a popular plan... I called a couple people who play with cars and they didn't have the parts we needed - the Explorer has metric sizing on all its bolts - hard to find. So we did some online searching and finally found a hardware store that was open - hurrah! Much rejoicing, we all headed off to buy the bolts. And, while getting her purse, my stepmother promptly locked both sets of keys in the car. The car with the rather expensive and complicated alarm system that they once tried to disable. They failed, utterly. It's a -complicated- alarm system.
Well. Damn. Who's going to come open the car up on Thanksgiving?! We found some people and waited and waited for them. They finally arrived, a late middle aged couple with a teenaged boy (15? 16?) who walked up with a jimmy, stuck a flashlight in his mouth, did something fast and slick with the window and -bam-. The alarms were screaming but the doors were open. It took 5 seconds. Five. "That was so cool!" I hollered at the kid, while everyone scrambled for the alarms. He grinned back at me and accepted his pay from my stepmother.
So the pins on the breaks were replaced, the keys retrieved and my parents have headed off on their way.
I have a car again. It's a beautiful little car. It's been beaten up a bit around the edges and repaired (kinda like me) but it runs well and it'll keep running well for a long time (also like me). I have a car. I no longer have to plan an hour and a half to get to work, I'm going to go dancing three times a week. I have an awesome job with really cool coworkers. I start updating the comic again on Monday. Everything, boys and girls, is going to work out.
My parents arrived in a hurry - they'd promised me dinner but they had to be back in Virginia by 9 am and they wanted to leave as soon as possible so they could get a good night's sleep before choosing the house they'll buy. They have, basically, this weekend to pick a house - they're moving in January. So... My lovely stepmother mentioned to my father that the breaks on their car had been making a weird noise (can you guess where this is going?) so my father opened up the wheel, took a look, and hiccuped. Somehow the pins that hold the caliper on had been -sheared- off completely. Nothing was holding it on but the wheel. Holy cow. And it's Thanksgiving! Who's going to be open on Thanksgiving?!
Faced with a disaster of this magnitude, we all did the responsible thing. We went and got dinner. Filled our bellies with food, my stepmother had a drink, and then we all trooped back. "Worse comes to worse," I said. "You take the little car up to Virginia and come back for the Explorer later, when the stores are open and you've dealt with this." This plan would add another 12 hours onto their driving plan so it wasn't a popular plan... I called a couple people who play with cars and they didn't have the parts we needed - the Explorer has metric sizing on all its bolts - hard to find. So we did some online searching and finally found a hardware store that was open - hurrah! Much rejoicing, we all headed off to buy the bolts. And, while getting her purse, my stepmother promptly locked both sets of keys in the car. The car with the rather expensive and complicated alarm system that they once tried to disable. They failed, utterly. It's a -complicated- alarm system.
Well. Damn. Who's going to come open the car up on Thanksgiving?! We found some people and waited and waited for them. They finally arrived, a late middle aged couple with a teenaged boy (15? 16?) who walked up with a jimmy, stuck a flashlight in his mouth, did something fast and slick with the window and -bam-. The alarms were screaming but the doors were open. It took 5 seconds. Five. "That was so cool!" I hollered at the kid, while everyone scrambled for the alarms. He grinned back at me and accepted his pay from my stepmother.
So the pins on the breaks were replaced, the keys retrieved and my parents have headed off on their way.
I have a car again. It's a beautiful little car. It's been beaten up a bit around the edges and repaired (kinda like me) but it runs well and it'll keep running well for a long time (also like me). I have a car. I no longer have to plan an hour and a half to get to work, I'm going to go dancing three times a week. I have an awesome job with really cool coworkers. I start updating the comic again on Monday. Everything, boys and girls, is going to work out.