Auto luck.
Yesterday, my wife's '97 Geo Metro -- which has been what I've been driving since my '93 Ford Taurus gave up the ghost -- conked out at the mailboxes in the complex in which I reside.
I had to turn off the car and pull the key out of the ignition because the mailbox key is on the keyring; I never got around to getting one of the pairs keyrings that you can pull apart to access different keys as needed.
I climbed back into the car, put the key in the ignition, turned it, and was rewarded with no more than two seconds' worth of lights from the dashboard instrumentation and the "fasten your seatbelt" beeps, before PFFT: nuthin'. No "click-click-click" as when the alternator or starter go south, no grinding as when the engine is flooded, nuthin'.
The good news is, this happened at the end of the day, when I was only two or three blocks from home.
The bad news is, I need this car to get back and forth to work (I'm not delusional enough to think that I'm in good enough shape to walk 25 miles a day to go to work and back; and, given that my division will likely be moving to another location some five or six miles away from our present location sometime in March, that mileage is only going to increase); the mass transit in my exurban area was pretty sparse to begin with, and has only gotten worse in the wake of the recent budget cuts, staff reductions and bus route contractions. I can't afford a car note and I don't have several thousand dollars lying around to buy a halfway decent used (I hate hate HATE the word "pre-owned"...) car outright.
This is obviously the universe's sly way of wishing me a Merry Effin' Christmas with its usual warm and tender regard -- feelings which I am only too happy to reciprocate.
I had to turn off the car and pull the key out of the ignition because the mailbox key is on the keyring; I never got around to getting one of the pairs keyrings that you can pull apart to access different keys as needed.
I climbed back into the car, put the key in the ignition, turned it, and was rewarded with no more than two seconds' worth of lights from the dashboard instrumentation and the "fasten your seatbelt" beeps, before PFFT: nuthin'. No "click-click-click" as when the alternator or starter go south, no grinding as when the engine is flooded, nuthin'.
The good news is, this happened at the end of the day, when I was only two or three blocks from home.
The bad news is, I need this car to get back and forth to work (I'm not delusional enough to think that I'm in good enough shape to walk 25 miles a day to go to work and back; and, given that my division will likely be moving to another location some five or six miles away from our present location sometime in March, that mileage is only going to increase); the mass transit in my exurban area was pretty sparse to begin with, and has only gotten worse in the wake of the recent budget cuts, staff reductions and bus route contractions. I can't afford a car note and I don't have several thousand dollars lying around to buy a halfway decent used (I hate hate HATE the word "pre-owned"...) car outright.
This is obviously the universe's sly way of wishing me a Merry Effin' Christmas with its usual warm and tender regard -- feelings which I am only too happy to reciprocate.