The mechanic got me in and back on the road in under half an hour. It turns out that one of the lines hadn’t been tightened properly and was still leaking brake fluid. So they took care of it and wished me a good day.

While I’m certainly glad that they got me in so quickly, were able to fix the problem easily, and didn’t even try to charge me (which was smart of them, considering they were the ones who improperly tightened the line), I did feel like they could’ve been a bit more apologetic about the whole incident. After all, we’re talking about my brakes. That sort of slip-up could’ve had me unable to brake as I came upon slow-moving traffic on one of the interstates. Or it could have left me unable to stop at a red light. And even though it wasn’t that major, it still meant that I had to postpone my travel plans for a day, rearrange my schedule to drive back to the mechanic, and spend the time — which was inconvenient no matter how brief — waiting for them to look at the problem and fix it.

Originally, the mechanic hadn’t even planned on telling me what was wrong. He just pulled the car out front, walked in, and told me I was good to go. I had to ask him what the problem was. And then he told me matter-of-factly without so much as a “sorry about that.” Call me crazy, but even the slightest admission of guilt over the original mistake would’ve been nice.

Of course, I should note that Louie, the guy who usually books appointments and otherwise interfaces with the customers, wasn’t working today. I suspect if he had been, things would’ve been different. Louie’s the kind of guy who thinks about these kinds of things and does his best to make sure the customer feels okay about everything. But geez, if the other guys in the shop can’t even manage to acknowledge they screwed up and offer even a brief apology for it, maybe they should just close the garage on days Louie isn’t there.

This evening, while driving home from work, my brake light came on again. What’s worse, it’s not turning off this time. Considering that the brake light was the whole reason the silly thing was in the garage over the weekend and for the first two days of this week, I am not a happy camper.

I have called my parents and informed them that I will not be driving home tonight due to the fact that I need to go have words with a mechanic. Dad’s offering to come pick me up for the weekend so I can be home with them. If my car is not done by noon, I may take him up on that offer. However, considering that I just paid the mechanic a significant amount of money to fix my brakes only to discover they’re now worse, I’m thinking the mechanic would be wise to move my car to the head of the queue tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I might be even less pleasant than I already expect to be.

This morning, I turned in the queermobile and picked up the keys to my more sensible Mercury Sable. I’m going to miss that little lavender ride, though I’m glad I don’t have to pay another day’s rental on it.

I first went to the mechanic’s shop to get the bad news. It was bad indeed, but my bank account didn’t die despite the fact that I bled it hard to pay my bill. The guy at the counter was quite sympathetic and commented on the fact that Ford vehicles seem to be notorious for having their struts and springs go bad pretty quickly.

I then took the time to move the half dozen items I needed for work from the queermobile over to my car before hopping back into the lavender delight to drive the final two blocks to its rightful owner. They quickly checked the car out and offered me a ride to wherever I needed to go. If the weather hadn’t been rainy, I would’ve turned them down and counted the two block trek on foot a good thing for my under-active body. But having a mild aversion to dampness, I graciously accepted the offer.

I believe the name of the young man (I’m guessing he’s in his early to mid twenties) who gave me a lift was Jeff. We had a pleasant enough conversation, and I realized just how witty and friendly I can be. And well, let’s just say that Jeff wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes. At any rate, we got to the mechanic and I hopped into my car to head on to work.

I must say that upon climbing into my car, my dreams of painting it lavender quickly died. My interior has way too much of a brown tint (it’s actually a shade of beige) to go well with that kind of exterior color. And considering that the seats are all leather, I refuse to redo the interior just to match the color. So for now, I’ll have to live with a burgandy car.

I’m going to miss that little PT Cruiser.

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.