The Power of Two Jimmys
It's funny how some things happen right when you don't need them to. Last Saturday, on my way to the bank to deposit a large amount of money for Billy K., my car began to overheat. Of course I had no extra money because I had just paid rent, so this came at the perfect time. I looked under my car to find an awesome flowing leak of coolant. With my car not able to drive, I had Nina shuttle me around to work for the next two days.
I gave up my Monday shift to one of the other sushi chefs at work so that Palermo and I could work on the car. Palermo is my go-to guy for ghetto-rigging my car so that I don't get slammed in the ass by mechanics and their horrific prices. We started taking off parts of the car, until we found that the water pump was the source of the leak. We went to AutoZone to buy a replacement and more coolant, which only cost me around $50. I called Firestone to see how much they were gonna charge me for the water pump installation, and they quoted me $350! Sure, they had far more experience and they could have gotten it done sooner (it took us a total of about 7 hours), but that was a bullshit price. Slowly but surely, Palermo and I installed the new pump and put everything back in. The serpentine belt was the worse. It's the belt that runs with the alternator, A/C, crank shaft, and everything else necessary. We didn't really know how to put it back on, so we kept Googling belt diagrams, looking for a frame of reference. Palermo eventually found a website that just told us to look at the inside of the hood, and sure enough, there was a diagram of how the belt should be fitted, right in our fucking faces. With everything settled, I started the car and everything was running pretty smooth, maybe even smoother. Whoever had last put in the alternator didn't tighten some bolts, which made a lot of things wobbly.
If I didn't have friends like Palermo, I wouldn't know where I'd be today.
I gave up my Monday shift to one of the other sushi chefs at work so that Palermo and I could work on the car. Palermo is my go-to guy for ghetto-rigging my car so that I don't get slammed in the ass by mechanics and their horrific prices. We started taking off parts of the car, until we found that the water pump was the source of the leak. We went to AutoZone to buy a replacement and more coolant, which only cost me around $50. I called Firestone to see how much they were gonna charge me for the water pump installation, and they quoted me $350! Sure, they had far more experience and they could have gotten it done sooner (it took us a total of about 7 hours), but that was a bullshit price. Slowly but surely, Palermo and I installed the new pump and put everything back in. The serpentine belt was the worse. It's the belt that runs with the alternator, A/C, crank shaft, and everything else necessary. We didn't really know how to put it back on, so we kept Googling belt diagrams, looking for a frame of reference. Palermo eventually found a website that just told us to look at the inside of the hood, and sure enough, there was a diagram of how the belt should be fitted, right in our fucking faces. With everything settled, I started the car and everything was running pretty smooth, maybe even smoother. Whoever had last put in the alternator didn't tighten some bolts, which made a lot of things wobbly.
If I didn't have friends like Palermo, I wouldn't know where I'd be today.