Black humor and black tape
Jun. 3rd, 2009 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogMy signoff line to Eleanor as I left early this morning, she having her first (and, it would happily seem, last) post-op appointment with her OB-GYN:
Bye! Have fun storming the uterus!
----
From there, the day went blazingly fast through an inverted roller-coaster of bad and good. That early-morning court appearance was much-delayed and essentially useless, and a parking ticket awaited me when I did escape more than the metered hour after arriving, all because some blowhard from St. Louis on a prior case took a good 45 minutes to make a 45-second point. Even a routine appointment in Batavia on the way home wound up being futile because I'd forgotten the papers I needed to have with me.
Ah, but the afternoon follows the morn. I was happily home in the early p.m. with my beloved on a beautiful day, after we played a long-overdue game of Musical Vehicles to get her truck in for its annual safety/emissions inspection. Unlike our many prior-year games of inspection station chicken, this one we went into knowing there was something wrong. For weeks if not months, the anti-lock-brake system on her truck has been gorked, causing it to pulsate and essentially thrust the vehicle forward while you're braking it to a stop. I've been driving the truck a bit more lately, on occasions when Eleanor has been taking Em out on driving lessons in my car, and it took some serious getting-used-to as I tooled about in Goldie the Truck before today. I figured this would be at least a $200 repair, which would cut into the cash available to fix what will become Emily's car.
Not long after I drove us both home from the repair shop, the call came: inspection passed, needing only two wiper blades, the ABS system not being required at all for inspection purposes. They'd run some diagnostics without identifying much, and I gave them an hour of time to see if it could besledgehammered coaxed back into service. I gingerly took Emily's car on an errand in that general direction and awaited the verdict, which came less than half an hour later:
He chose to disengage the whole bloody thing rather than stick us with a repair bill for it, merely pulling the ABS fuse from the electrical box to stop the sudden forward thrust.
Can you imagine a dealership agreeing to such a solution? Or a tire store or brand-name repair chain? They-all consider it a sin to leave other peoples' money on the table, especially when you have the threat of a failed inspection on your side. But these guys did it, keeping the whole bill- state fees, wipers and all- to barely more than a Benjamin- and now Frankie (the green 2000 Ford Fuckus that will be Em's if it passes both state inspection and their more important practical one) has a two-day visit at the Erin'n'Bill Spa before its registration expires next week.
All of this reminded me of the Car Guys, who tend to take a similar pragmatic approach to repairs on things that aren't essential to safety or comfort. (Yeah, ABS is nice, but our other vehicles don't have it, and it leads to as much false security as anything.) Click'N'Clack's frequent recommendation for annoying car sounds is to turn the radio up, and they often "solve" mysteries involving idiot lights on the dashboard by covering them over with black tape. And speaking of idiot lights, Goldie now has a permanent ABS brake light on the dash, but so what? For the first time since I've driven it any time recently, she stops when you put the brakes on, without getting into an argument with you about it.
That'll do, truck, that'll do.
Bye! Have fun storming the uterus!
----
From there, the day went blazingly fast through an inverted roller-coaster of bad and good. That early-morning court appearance was much-delayed and essentially useless, and a parking ticket awaited me when I did escape more than the metered hour after arriving, all because some blowhard from St. Louis on a prior case took a good 45 minutes to make a 45-second point. Even a routine appointment in Batavia on the way home wound up being futile because I'd forgotten the papers I needed to have with me.
Ah, but the afternoon follows the morn. I was happily home in the early p.m. with my beloved on a beautiful day, after we played a long-overdue game of Musical Vehicles to get her truck in for its annual safety/emissions inspection. Unlike our many prior-year games of inspection station chicken, this one we went into knowing there was something wrong. For weeks if not months, the anti-lock-brake system on her truck has been gorked, causing it to pulsate and essentially thrust the vehicle forward while you're braking it to a stop. I've been driving the truck a bit more lately, on occasions when Eleanor has been taking Em out on driving lessons in my car, and it took some serious getting-used-to as I tooled about in Goldie the Truck before today. I figured this would be at least a $200 repair, which would cut into the cash available to fix what will become Emily's car.
Not long after I drove us both home from the repair shop, the call came: inspection passed, needing only two wiper blades, the ABS system not being required at all for inspection purposes. They'd run some diagnostics without identifying much, and I gave them an hour of time to see if it could be
He chose to disengage the whole bloody thing rather than stick us with a repair bill for it, merely pulling the ABS fuse from the electrical box to stop the sudden forward thrust.
Can you imagine a dealership agreeing to such a solution? Or a tire store or brand-name repair chain? They-all consider it a sin to leave other peoples' money on the table, especially when you have the threat of a failed inspection on your side. But these guys did it, keeping the whole bill- state fees, wipers and all- to barely more than a Benjamin- and now Frankie (the green 2000 Ford Fuckus that will be Em's if it passes both state inspection and their more important practical one) has a two-day visit at the Erin'n'Bill Spa before its registration expires next week.
All of this reminded me of the Car Guys, who tend to take a similar pragmatic approach to repairs on things that aren't essential to safety or comfort. (Yeah, ABS is nice, but our other vehicles don't have it, and it leads to as much false security as anything.) Click'N'Clack's frequent recommendation for annoying car sounds is to turn the radio up, and they often "solve" mysteries involving idiot lights on the dashboard by covering them over with black tape. And speaking of idiot lights, Goldie now has a permanent ABS brake light on the dash, but so what? For the first time since I've driven it any time recently, she stops when you put the brakes on, without getting into an argument with you about it.
That'll do, truck, that'll do.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 07:11 pm (UTC)this whole post just slayed me. glad the inspection went in your favor....