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Maintenance & Upkeep
Jun. 17th, 2006 08:11 amThe Last Honest Auto Mechanic gave me a quote of $1300 on the van.
I freaked.
Part of it was for routine maintenance, a new muffler, two new tires – apparently the air pressure in the current right front tire had been so low for so long that even the steering wheel lurched over to the right and all the tread had worn off the sides.
"Don't you notice things like that?" he asked severely and I had to admit: I do not.
Cars aren't my thing. Car maintenance isn't my thing. I have too many other things to notice. Marriage like any other partnership is all about delegation, and I had assumed that Ben was on top of the car stuff.
Wrong.
A goodly chunk of the $1300 plus, though, was allotted towards the un-doing of various jimmyrigs that Ben had introduced into the electrical system. Like for instance he'd been running two batteries off the alternator – one battery to spark the engine, the other to power the little mini-fridge in the van. The problem was that the alternator was set up for 12 amps while the combined voltage of the two batteries was 20 amps. And the fridge wasn't working.
At least I think that's what the Last Honest Auto Mechanic was telling me.
To be honest, I didn't understand a word he said after "thirteen hundred dollars." I think maybe he was speaking to me in his native tongue, some sort of hybrid between ancient Assyrian and neo-Dravidian.
I've been dialing Ben twenty times a day to see if I can get any information out of him but Ben isn't picking up his phone anymore. This is beyond fucked. Grown-ups do not behave like this. We have business to discuss.
The CV axels in the van were entirely new (so Ben hadn't replaced them) but they weren't an issue, the LHAM told me. He's a small, spry man with no information about the sweeping innovations the dental hygiene industry had made in the last ten years. Smile Enhancement will forever be a stranger! But I liked him a lot and I also liked his son Pierre with whom I had dealt on my last pilgrimage to the tiny shack in Sand City. I trusted him. Maybe it was because he put so little energy into appearances.
Still, there was one big problem: I didn't have thirteen hundred dollars. And the LHAM didn't take credit cards.
Now I suppose this is exactly the kind of madness and bad priorities that are symptomatic of my inability to live a normal, balanced life.
Because the real reason I wanted to get the van fixed is because I couldn't bear the thought that Max would have any problems getting back to Deep Springs with all his stuff. And I didn't see how he could possibly fly with three huge suitcases and a duffle bag.
I have many other things I could spend thirteen hundred dollars on, certainly. Like new wardrobes for me and Robin – we both look like we're dressing out of free boxes these days. Or maybe a new computer system for the store. The old computer is another Ben home-built special, slow as molasses and erupting with strange idiosyncrasies.
"Maybe I should book some pre-scheduled time with you," I suggested to Michael, the incredibly buff At Your Service mobile computer guy whom I'd lured back into the store in the wake of yet another computer crisis earlier this week. "You know. To get rid of dust bunnies and defrag the hard drive."
"For what I would charge you to do that, you could get a whole new computer," Michael said, shaking his head. "And frankly that's what you need to do. This thing is a disaster waiting to happen."
Back to the van.
"Is there any way I could spread the payments out, say $350 a week over four weeks?" I asked. The little extra was an added incentive, like interest on a loan.
The Last Honest Auto Mechanic began shaking his head: no, no, he was sorry, he was a small business owner, lived on the margin, out of pocket for parts, I wouldn't believe how much he had to pay in sales tax –
"Well, then, is there any way I could post date the check for say the 23rd?" This maneuver would buy me a little time. Maybe I could buy a ski mask and rob a 7/11.
The Last Honest Auto Mechanic sighed deeply. "Let me talk to Pierre."
Fortunately Pierre likes me. Last time I was there we'd chatted for half an hour or so about sealing wax and whether pigs have wings, and I'd laid some hot sauce on him, hot sauce that had survived the Great Shelf Collapse of November 2005 intact though with such severe label damage that I couldn't possibly sell it.
"Pierre says he trusts you," said the LHAM, tottering back. We shook hands on it. And now another burden had been laid on my deceptively Amazonian shoulders – betray their trust and Volkswagen owners all over Monterey County would see a rise in their rates and a decline in their service.
I had several thousand dollars worth of checks pending to vendors this week. Next week was the week allotted to paying off the American Express card.
The American Express card payment would just have to be late.
I sighed.
No margin.
Other people my age are planning cruises. I am living without a margin.
In desperation I picked up the phone and called my eccentric aunt Jane whom you may imagine as a cross between Aunt March from Little Women and Charles Ryder's father from Brideshead Revisited. She is difficult for me to deal with. One of my earliest memories is being thrown repeatedly down a flight of stairs by her for some childish offense. I think I was three. Nobody took me to the hospital afterwards but I think maybe they should have.
No doubt if Jane hadn't thrown me down that flight of stairs at this very moment I would be sitting in my fabulous million dollar retirement home, leafing through brochures for a ten-day voyage down the Danube. Therefore it is all Jane's fault: she owes me.
"Jane, I realize you haven't heard from me in over a year but I'm in a difficult set of circumstances and I need to borrow some money," I say all in one breath. Max, Max, Max beats in the psychic background like the bass note from some souped up SUV audio system. You are doing this for Max.
"Patty!" says Jane. "How lovely to hear from you. And of course you're calling because you need money. Isn't that always the way?" She laughs trillingly.
Max, Max, Max, I think. Pride under these circumstances is maladaptive behavior.
"Of course I am as rich as Croesus," Jane continues. "Yes, life has been kind to me that way. What a lucky girl I am! How much do you need?"
I can come up with half the van cost, I calculate. "Seven hundred and fifty dollars," I blurt. "I will pay you back over three months in installments."
"But how can this be, Patty? Do you not have a thousand dollars tucked away in some little bank account for just such an emergency? It scares me, Patty, to think of you living so close to the edge at your age."
She's right, you know, the narrator embedded in my head intones and this is all that stops me from screaming, "Fuck you!" and slamming down the phone. That and the bass note: Max, Max, Max.
"Yes, it scares me too, Jane. I do the best I can but you know better than anyone I didn't have anyone to teach me how to live," I say and this delicate shadow of reproach is the best strategic tactic I could possibly have come up with. In another five minutes, the money is being wired to my bank account. Never underestimate the power of guilt.
A day later, the van is ready to be picked up. It no longer lurches to the side when you drive it.
For good measure, that same day, I get the oil and the oil filter changed on the Vdub bug and new wiper blades! I charge these things to my American Express card.
Max and Nathan leave for Deep Springs tomorrow. Nathan will visit for a couple of days and then drive the van back to Monterey.
I freaked.
Part of it was for routine maintenance, a new muffler, two new tires – apparently the air pressure in the current right front tire had been so low for so long that even the steering wheel lurched over to the right and all the tread had worn off the sides.
"Don't you notice things like that?" he asked severely and I had to admit: I do not.
Cars aren't my thing. Car maintenance isn't my thing. I have too many other things to notice. Marriage like any other partnership is all about delegation, and I had assumed that Ben was on top of the car stuff.
Wrong.
A goodly chunk of the $1300 plus, though, was allotted towards the un-doing of various jimmyrigs that Ben had introduced into the electrical system. Like for instance he'd been running two batteries off the alternator – one battery to spark the engine, the other to power the little mini-fridge in the van. The problem was that the alternator was set up for 12 amps while the combined voltage of the two batteries was 20 amps. And the fridge wasn't working.
At least I think that's what the Last Honest Auto Mechanic was telling me.
To be honest, I didn't understand a word he said after "thirteen hundred dollars." I think maybe he was speaking to me in his native tongue, some sort of hybrid between ancient Assyrian and neo-Dravidian.
I've been dialing Ben twenty times a day to see if I can get any information out of him but Ben isn't picking up his phone anymore. This is beyond fucked. Grown-ups do not behave like this. We have business to discuss.
The CV axels in the van were entirely new (so Ben hadn't replaced them) but they weren't an issue, the LHAM told me. He's a small, spry man with no information about the sweeping innovations the dental hygiene industry had made in the last ten years. Smile Enhancement will forever be a stranger! But I liked him a lot and I also liked his son Pierre with whom I had dealt on my last pilgrimage to the tiny shack in Sand City. I trusted him. Maybe it was because he put so little energy into appearances.
Still, there was one big problem: I didn't have thirteen hundred dollars. And the LHAM didn't take credit cards.
Now I suppose this is exactly the kind of madness and bad priorities that are symptomatic of my inability to live a normal, balanced life.
Because the real reason I wanted to get the van fixed is because I couldn't bear the thought that Max would have any problems getting back to Deep Springs with all his stuff. And I didn't see how he could possibly fly with three huge suitcases and a duffle bag.
I have many other things I could spend thirteen hundred dollars on, certainly. Like new wardrobes for me and Robin – we both look like we're dressing out of free boxes these days. Or maybe a new computer system for the store. The old computer is another Ben home-built special, slow as molasses and erupting with strange idiosyncrasies.
"Maybe I should book some pre-scheduled time with you," I suggested to Michael, the incredibly buff At Your Service mobile computer guy whom I'd lured back into the store in the wake of yet another computer crisis earlier this week. "You know. To get rid of dust bunnies and defrag the hard drive."
"For what I would charge you to do that, you could get a whole new computer," Michael said, shaking his head. "And frankly that's what you need to do. This thing is a disaster waiting to happen."
Back to the van.
"Is there any way I could spread the payments out, say $350 a week over four weeks?" I asked. The little extra was an added incentive, like interest on a loan.
The Last Honest Auto Mechanic began shaking his head: no, no, he was sorry, he was a small business owner, lived on the margin, out of pocket for parts, I wouldn't believe how much he had to pay in sales tax –
"Well, then, is there any way I could post date the check for say the 23rd?" This maneuver would buy me a little time. Maybe I could buy a ski mask and rob a 7/11.
The Last Honest Auto Mechanic sighed deeply. "Let me talk to Pierre."
Fortunately Pierre likes me. Last time I was there we'd chatted for half an hour or so about sealing wax and whether pigs have wings, and I'd laid some hot sauce on him, hot sauce that had survived the Great Shelf Collapse of November 2005 intact though with such severe label damage that I couldn't possibly sell it.
"Pierre says he trusts you," said the LHAM, tottering back. We shook hands on it. And now another burden had been laid on my deceptively Amazonian shoulders – betray their trust and Volkswagen owners all over Monterey County would see a rise in their rates and a decline in their service.
I had several thousand dollars worth of checks pending to vendors this week. Next week was the week allotted to paying off the American Express card.
The American Express card payment would just have to be late.
I sighed.
No margin.
Other people my age are planning cruises. I am living without a margin.
In desperation I picked up the phone and called my eccentric aunt Jane whom you may imagine as a cross between Aunt March from Little Women and Charles Ryder's father from Brideshead Revisited. She is difficult for me to deal with. One of my earliest memories is being thrown repeatedly down a flight of stairs by her for some childish offense. I think I was three. Nobody took me to the hospital afterwards but I think maybe they should have.
No doubt if Jane hadn't thrown me down that flight of stairs at this very moment I would be sitting in my fabulous million dollar retirement home, leafing through brochures for a ten-day voyage down the Danube. Therefore it is all Jane's fault: she owes me.
"Jane, I realize you haven't heard from me in over a year but I'm in a difficult set of circumstances and I need to borrow some money," I say all in one breath. Max, Max, Max beats in the psychic background like the bass note from some souped up SUV audio system. You are doing this for Max.
"Patty!" says Jane. "How lovely to hear from you. And of course you're calling because you need money. Isn't that always the way?" She laughs trillingly.
Max, Max, Max, I think. Pride under these circumstances is maladaptive behavior.
"Of course I am as rich as Croesus," Jane continues. "Yes, life has been kind to me that way. What a lucky girl I am! How much do you need?"
I can come up with half the van cost, I calculate. "Seven hundred and fifty dollars," I blurt. "I will pay you back over three months in installments."
"But how can this be, Patty? Do you not have a thousand dollars tucked away in some little bank account for just such an emergency? It scares me, Patty, to think of you living so close to the edge at your age."
She's right, you know, the narrator embedded in my head intones and this is all that stops me from screaming, "Fuck you!" and slamming down the phone. That and the bass note: Max, Max, Max.
"Yes, it scares me too, Jane. I do the best I can but you know better than anyone I didn't have anyone to teach me how to live," I say and this delicate shadow of reproach is the best strategic tactic I could possibly have come up with. In another five minutes, the money is being wired to my bank account. Never underestimate the power of guilt.
A day later, the van is ready to be picked up. It no longer lurches to the side when you drive it.
For good measure, that same day, I get the oil and the oil filter changed on the Vdub bug and new wiper blades! I charge these things to my American Express card.
Max and Nathan leave for Deep Springs tomorrow. Nathan will visit for a couple of days and then drive the van back to Monterey.
