Tales from the Shark Tank

I was about to send a friend an e-mail pointing out that she has once again let half a month go by without blogging, when I paused to think how long it had been since I’d written anything. So, since I’m not quite enough of a hypocrite to ask her to do what I have not, I’m writing.

So what have I been up to? Well, let’s see. As my gentle readers may recall, about a month ago my car started acting up for fair. Thereafter it spent a week with a mechanic in Chicago, while he tried to figure out why it was doing what it was doing and I drove a rental car. He figured out what it wasn’t – it wasn’t the transmission, the ignition system, the fuel injector or filter or indeed any part of the fuel system, the primary computer, the oxygen sensors, the high-voltage electrical harness, the underbody wiring harness…you get the picture. The problem is that aside from concluding that it is somewhere in the low-voltage electrical system, he didn’t find it. Every mechanic to whom I’ve spoken agrees. It has to be acting up right then to be diagnosed and repaired. It only screws up when it’s been driven over very wet roads for several consecutive hours, and the weather has not cooperated most days.

Now, I’ve tried valiantly to get it to screw up. I’ve poured water over the assorted stuff under the hood. I’ve taken it through a car wash. I’ve driven through whatever rain we actually got, cruising around and listening to CDs for a couple of exceedingly aimless hours. It’s behaved perfectly. But meanwhile, it’s goofed up three times now, once stranding me in Chicago, wherefore I no longer trust it. It’s entitled to an honorable retirement; it has 170,000 miles on it, and as I understand it, Chryslers don’t generally manage that.

But that has left me car hunting. I truly, sincerely, hate and despise car hunting, but that is how I’ve been spending the vast majority of my time. I thought maybe I’d found something yesterday, but when the dealer let me take it home overnight so Wick could try it out, we figured out that his long legs don’t fit – he can ride in it, but can’t drive it for more than a few minutes. Since whatever I get is likely to be the family distance-travel vehicle, that’s not a viable option. So the quest goes on, limited primarily by what I can both drive and ride in with reasonable comfort. I’ll find something here; I just hope it happens soon.

Ok, Ms. Kettle. It’s your turn.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Life as I know it. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.