but I’ve accomplished a lot. On Monday I had to get up early to catch the ferry across the Hudson river to pick up my car which had been at the mechanic for a week. I finally called the guy on Friday and asked him what was wrong with it. He told me he was just doing the estimate, and he would call me back. He calls me later and tells me it’s going to cost $3,957.35. I was rather surprised by this, and so I said I’d talk to him on Monday about it. What I really meant was that I was going to come and get my car back, becuase there was no way I was gonna pay $4 grand (after tax) to repair something that as far as I know, costs $195 for the broken part. It was raining that morning. Actually it was mist, but it may as well have been raining. Lucklily I had an umbrella, but I still got wet . There were three people on the ferry at 7.30 in the morning, it must have been a slow day. Everyone is probably still working at home. Since the fake pandemic people started to realize that doing a 2 hour commute every day to sit in a climate controlled, enclosed office , wasn’t that desirable any more.
I had to walk under the train tracks. Didn’t see anything as witty as this though.
Anyhow, I finally got there and took my car back home. It cost me $125 for the “estimate”, and it’s quite amusing reading. Everything in the cooling system apparently needs replacing, even though I know that most of is fairly new. The last guy did all that work when the water pump stopped working. In fact he replaced pretty much everything that he didn’t need to, having done his diagnoses by imagining what was wrong with it rather than actually testing things first. He’s a good man though. He only charged me for the parts. I know for a fact that everything Professor Goofball tells me is broken, probably isn’t because it ‘s almost brand new. $574 for a water pump that’s less than 2 years old?
If indeed the water pump was broken, the car wouldn’t run at all. That’s why I took it to the first dude, and I had to put on the back of a flatbed truck to get it there. That was the start of the replacing of everything. The shop that I had gone to prior to that, had set fire to the engine trying to remove a bolt, and then dumped fire retardent all over it, which fucked up the radiator, which was also replaced.
Two weeks ago the engine ran rough one day, so I thought maybe it needs a tune-up. It was fine when I drove it to the Professor, and has been since, so maybe it didn’t need one after all. The “tune up” that I thought I wanted was going to cost $1,068.34. I don’t know what coils he was going to put in it, but for the life of me, I can’t find any that cost that much.
The Citroen Cx. I may have to go back to Australia or live in France just to have one of these again
The guy is insane. These are Rolls Royce level repairs for a car that is 14 years old, FFS. Someone told me today that a lot of “city people” take their cars there for repairs. I think I know what she meant. Maybe I look like a city person, but I’m not that fucking stupid. I’m going to take it back to the other guy. He’s 200 miles away, but he’s probably at least three thousand dollars cheaper. This car talk is boring I know, but that’s all I can think of right now. Today’s Powerball is more than half a billion dollars. If I won that I still wouldn’t take my car to Professor Goofy.
Wrong finger, but maybe that’s the way girls do it.
I could try and fix it myself by using the Youtube University of DIY’ers. I fixed my truck’s water pump that way. Unfortunately BMW owners can be very annoying in these matters. If I hear one more idiot say “I’m just gonna go ahead and do such and such”, or “You should just go ahead and do this or that”, I’ll fucking scream. What is it with this “go ahead” bullshit? They all say it. Just go ahead and fucking stop saying go ahead, just do it instead.
The origins of the “Just Do It” the Nike slogan came from Dan Wieden, cofounder of the advertising firm Wieden and Kennedy. He said the phrase was inspired by the final words of a death row inmate who was facing execution who said, “You know, let’s do it.” “I remember when I read that I was like, that’s amazing. I mean how, in the face of that much uncertainty*, do you push through that? I didn’t like the ‘let’s’ thing, and so I just changed that, cause otherwise I’d have to give him credit,” Wieden joked. Such compassion for one’s fellow man.
*what’s uncertain about being executed?
Peter Lillie examines the plans for his latest madcap scheme.