I digress

A wee bit, I suppose.

Took three days before I could dig the LS out of the 2 foot of snow we got over the last several days. [That’d be a week, really.  Just keeps coming at us.]  That’s not accounting for the extra foot that the “very kind and handy keepers” of this lot decided to shove up against my car.

I do have to say this about the “limited edition” manual LS – it’s a BEAST and it’s lovely, and I adore driving it-and I’ll probably get my first ticket in it just for getting irritated at-… [shaking my head now… I’m constantly amazed by the state, be it their education standards or their licensing] one key point being-

Okay.

You stick shifters, stand up.  You got a problem with the clutch, or whatever it may be (I pray for you it’s just a clutch issue, and nothing anything more serious than fluid loss) and you turn on the hazard lights.  You get into the far right lane.  On a rather dead road.  Yet!  Even a school bus will creep up behind you.  And creep… And creep…

And I’m watching this eejit, “Okay, moron, you are bussing around these children (at the most asinine hours, I’ve found out here they go to school maybe four hours a day-which explains A LOT about A LOT) and you’re creeping up on a car with the hazards on.

Then you got the morons that will creep up, creep CLOSER-and closer-and closer-and nearly hit you-and then start laying on the horn.

“FUCKING hazards here, mo-T!  What do you think that means?  Wait, I bet you didn’t even know you HAD that button yourself!  Let alone what it does-cuz I’m dead damn sure at this point you don’t know what it means!  You just so beautifully displayed that, you FUCKING moron!  Lemme guess, you were educated by the school system here, eh?  Yeah, cuz they don’t seem to be able to figure out flashing lights EITHER!”

That was a fun morning on ice.  One of the many I’ve had to endure for the last couple months.

Still one that astounds me, though.

I suppose one other factor is the rage-wars that happen when one shovels out a parking space.

Bungle, on one hand, has a fabulous SUV with 4-wheel drive options that let him climb practical hills of ice (yeah, thanks to the new tires put on in the shop that lent way to his starter crapping out-yeah, it’s definitely bad, bad, BAD luck to work on that thing)

Especially after his fuel pump crapped out in Baltimore and he called me at four a.m. prior to my having to work a Saturday shift-and then we spent 2 hours waiting on a tow (well, it was the weekend, dontcha know!) and then another 2 hours at  dealership because he needed the car ASAP and while I knew what it was, I couldn’t get the job done in one day-I HAD TO WORK ON OTHER PPL’S S!

Not to mention his freaking out on me the entire time, but I can’t blame a guy who’s been awake for near 28 hours for being a bit testy… Again, I digress.

Well, my vehicle is a particular “luxury performance” make that is swooft to the south.  And believe me, I hear that a lot.  “Well, that’s what you guys all like, yeah?”

“Yeah, well admit it’s pimp shit and get outta my face.  You didn’t even know this thing EXISTED before now, right?”

“Wuhl…”

“MmHmm…”

“Yeah, well what’s it costing you to fix?”

“WUHHLL whatdoya think?  JEEZ!  Thick as bricks, yeah? No, I can’t afford it!”

Regardless, I can’t work on my car because I keep constantly bringing Bungle’s into the shop.  It’s so familiar now that this morning I walked back in to find someone had stuck a sign on the back glass “for sell!  CHEAP!” and I laughed.  I keep telling him to sell it.  I told him that before the MAJOR work done to it.  But afterwards walking out feeling a bit sore in the backside, I said, “Well, you dropped that much on it, you’re kinda stuck with it now, you know?  I don’t play around with that much dosh just for giggles.  I hope you really DO like it.  Because you’re wringing another ten years out of it, so help me G!”

I will say again, “Asssssssss mah Daddy tought me-don’t FIX a car to where you think it’s all done, don’t fill up the tank-don’t think it’s straight-the minute you do, it’s gonna bite you!”

And all sincerity here, thank GOD we are being taken care of.  Fuel pump crapped out on him, but the LS hadn’t gotten terminal, so I could get down to him at 4 a.m. and work a deal with the two companies-because-well, I’m in the biz.

Got his new tires put on (oh yeah, gotta love aftermarket, they’d put the wrong stuff on, so when he had a blown flat, and put the spare on, it nearly destroyed a diff and cost us 600 bucks in new tires) he had them for this very lovely-icey-bullshitty weather.  Timing is always a godsend on this stuff.  The only way he got his car fixed for the major was thanks to [EDIT – shit design]  that-get this-paid out EXACTLY the day we had to write the check out for money we DID NOT have.  And paid out EXACTLY what we needed for the job as well as TP.

He [Bungle] about crapped too, calling me on the job, “You approved it?!”

[Not to mention the service writer was a little leery when I had to leave my audible shop to go outside and ask a lot of questions about his.  Heh.]

I’m like [to Bungle],”Well, take it from me, it’s kinda something you gotta have.  We can work it out if we need to, but we can’t afford that rental/loaner, yeah?  So I approved it.”  So flying by the seat of my pants as I did.

Oh, what was it after that… No start in an alley, had to have a friend drive me to the city-had to drive Bungle’s Beast back out [I hate big cities that don’t know how to manage their traffic, BTW]

This last time he called [one outta every seven days for stuff] and said his CEL was on, I about s*, read his code and said “okay, if it starts to idle funny, you tell me!  But we might be able to eek this one out!”

The irony of it was that the 2 foot snow hit, so when he’s off, I take his car.  And I was sitting at a light, and after a minute thought, “Y’know, this is actually idling a bit funny…. But not BAD so he should be okay!” Famous last THOUGHTS.

Big snow.  SUV slammed through it for two days.  All’s well.  But is next day he has to be in to work,  I get…

Flash forward to another of The Calls:  “It’s stalling whenever I drop RPMs.  Started before I left town, worse when I got into traffic-I had to restart several times and lost power steering-fuckers honking at the hazard lights-”

“Yeah,” I was quick to point out, “These wankers don’t know what that really means.”

“I shot many birds.”

“Good for you, Baby.  Just know, they didn’t understand why.”  I still laugh at that.  I THOUGHT that was standard ED for drivers, but app not here!

Note here:  yeah, guys, if you lose power, that is the first thing to go. Your power steering.  Unless you’re playing in the new park that is running fully electric, you’re kinda screwed if your engine dies.  And even IF youre electric, you’re chancing that all the same unless you’re paying a hefty plan or a lease for one of the models that run off of two batteries.  [Totttttttttal BS if you ask me about those things]

All I said in return:  “Can you drive it home?  Or just get it here?  I know what’s wrong, I know-just get it here.  I can get it to the shop and fix it.” Had already bought the wallet-walloping part.  Took a hit, because I know I had a full “lifetime warranty” on it, I just couldn’t remember the number! Until I left the store, I remembered why I broke down other people’s cars/work done into THEIR numbers, not mine.  Bite me there, but lesson learned!

F if I had a customer scheduled to come in early on me, I got there even earlier to get his car done, because he needed it by noon break.  And of course, that was funny to the rest of the shop.  Yeah, I showed up early.  But I showed up early only to move that customer’s car outta my f”ing way, and drove Bungle’s car in to fix it.  Thus, the sign on the back glass.

Which I loved.

…And which I still agree with.  “SELLLL IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!  I keep saying that, “SELL IT!”

I dunno, he loves it.  And I can’t blame him.  I’ve been there myself.  Many, many, many-well, every car I’ve ever owned-times.  😀

I can’t really fuss about this one, though.  It’s saved my bum many times.  As said, when he isn’t working, I get to drive it.  And I NEED it a lot more these days just to skim across the ice-pond these jerks call a parking lot.  I know damn well my car wouldn’t make it.  His?  Hah.  It slings ice and snow and plows through what most of the dwellers are digging out.  Even while they are.  Kinda an asshole thing to do, but hey-ya got it, work it, right?

No, no one takes his parking space.

Mainly because…. the two foot of snow, I just went out and dug a bit behind his tires and yelled, “start it up, back it out to make sure-but you’re good!”

Meanwhile, some asshole in a sedan has pulled into the “waiting place” to try and take his spot, not realizing that I am not “clearing it” for a low profile vehicle-I’m clearing it for brand new AW tires and a tall SUV.  You ain’t getting into that spot even if Bungle did head out to the store for-… TP and bread seems to be the hot commodity here.  Before, in the home state, it used to be milk and bread with only a HINT of ice…. funny, really.  I don’t ever recall TP being a super hot commodity.  Which is why it was so weird to me up here.  “Milk and TP?  Just what DO you guys do when it snows deep?”

I just couldn’t believe the knackers on that guy, though.  Going to sit there and make it THAT damn obvious if we left a clear space, one which he watched someone toil over, he was going to take.

People here put chairs in the spaces they clean, they plant debris-they boobytrap their parking spaces.  It’s like a weird warzone!

Mine, after I was able to dig it out-well, my little LS still has enough ass to get back into the spot-and back out.  And it’s daunting to anyone else, because it’s still a spot surrounded by snow.  So I always know-it’s open to me.  Heh, heh. [one note here:  wanna know how you’re married to a chef? you say you need to dig your car outta two feet + of snow, and so should probably buy a shovel-and he whips out a bread peel-and it WORKS!]

Driving here, though-ugh!  The snow just seems to compound stupid!

Sometimes I wanna yell as I get outta the car, “Learn to drive, youse arses!  Then maybe you could figure out how to steal this spot too!”

But I know, they’re too lazy for that.

Hmm… So much going on.

Well, we are nearly good buddies with Enterprise now.  Bungle has rented twice from them, in a few weeks, I’ll need to get another for “new training” two states away.  North, even!  Ugh!  I dread it!  And I am not about to take my vehicle into that kind of hostile territory.  Nor Bungle’s.  (spent too much on it already, yeah?)  Too much snow and cold further up, I can’t even take it here!

Freezing my bum off side note:  I do have to give props to a very badass down comforter we got.  (Fun story with that, but I have to give it to the person responsible before I can post it here.)

Shop-War going on, and a  bit of talk about a union lately-which kinda surprised me.  Contract busting and unions-well, that’s just stuff I thought I leaned towards, but seems I’m not alone.  And I am kind of (or may not really be) surprised about how little people do know about legitimate unions.   And by that, I don’t mean guys that get paid 100k a year to just install left hand tires in a production plant.

Unions-you guys really shot everyone in the foot pulling that kinda shit, and you know it.

“I can’t even breathe a word about unions,” I told another tech. (one not so bound).  “But look it up-doesn’t take but a few people and a helluva lot more disgruntled workers.”

Also had to add, “Likely you’ll be fired-buuuuuttt given where we work?  And the fact they were so reluctant to  fire one guy for attempting to set another guy on fire [literally!]? I wouldn’t really worry about it.”

Yeah.

That did happen.

And we’ve had other fabulous drama go down.

I just haven’t-dunno, found the time between the SUV and the LS and meetings with bosses about situations, let alone life in our cardboard environment, to even remember to mention alot of our drama.

🙂  But it’s actually fascinating to work in that place.

And which I think, or maybe fear?  could turn this into “my car rantings/talkings/etc”.

Which might not be a bad thing.  Gotta vent it some how.

Oh, just so you all know (and you Utubers do) do not work in sweats in an indy shop.  Apparently it’s damn easy-and damn tempting!-to blast your pants off.

Oh, yeah, we’re still watching that one and laaaaaaaaaaaaughing as we do!

Ah well dinn’s timer went off, it’s way too late for me to be awake, and as I naturally now do-I wait for the 4 a.am. call with car trouble.

Wish you all better luck with your own!

Cuz a car is the LAST thing I know anyone wants to deal with.  So much more going on, yeah?