Today, the mechanic called me about my car. The back brakes need to be replaced. That’s no big deal, as it’s overdue. Unfortunately, I was also overdue in replacing the struts. As a result, the springs have broken, and the whole strut assembly on the back need to be replaced, too. I actually had to sit there and check my bank account balance while I was on the phone with the mechanic. I figure I’ll have to put off paying most of my bills until I get paid this Friday, but I should otherwise have the money for it. Which is good, because I can’t really forego having my car.

The other bad news is that they can’t get my car done until closing tomorrow night at the earliest. It’s entirely likely they’ll have to take the repair work into Wednesday, too. That means renting the car for another day. Fortunately, I had the foresight on Saturday to verify that I can just call the rental company and tell them I need to extend my rental period over the phone. So that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow evening.

I’m not entirely thrilled to have to be shelling out all this money at once. But in many ways, it’s my own fault. I hadn’t had the car in to check basic maintenance things in a while. Had I done so, I might have been able to catch the struts before the springs broke. But there’s no point in kicking myself too badly. As for the struts themselves, they should’ve been replaced as a course of standard maintenance, anyway. So it’s not like these are unreasonable repairs.

It’s still a bummer, though.