Not again!

So, I just spent a little of $500 to get the steering repaired on the Corsica. The steering pump, the steering belt and the steering pressure hose has to be replaced, plus some other stuff that the steering fluid was dripping on. Apparently, steering fluid is mildly corrosive. That was like the beginning of December.

Then yesterday, on my way home from work, the piece of shit I call a car broke down. Along the side of the road. Not that it doesn't start, don't misunderstand that. Everything turns over just fine. And the engine catches. And it runs. Just not long enough to get my hand from the key to the shift. Damn.

It stalled when I was warming it up, but it has been really cold and since the engine evened out pretty much right away, I figured like ok, I'll go home the back way, so at least if it is worst case scenario, I'm not stalling out on 22. It'll would be a city street and that fucks up traffic, but isn't as likely to cause an accident, at least.

So I get out of the parking lot and across the 33 overpass and into the new industrial park. And by the time I get halfway across the industrial park, things are getting kinda ugly. So I decided to pull into the parking lot at Outback with the idea that I'll dig out my AAA card and go inside and ask to use the phone.

But by the time I get my AAA card dug out and figure out what phone # I'm supposed to call, I get a brainstorm. I only work on the other side of the highway. It's not much more than a 1/4 of a mile, certainly not even a full 1/2, I'll limp the car back to where I work, where at least I know I can let it sit overnight if I have to, and I'll call Carl from there and he can pick me up and we'll come home and talk it over and decide what we want to do.

That way, if I do need to have it towed, and least it's been a decision that wasn't all on me. But...

The stupid piece of shit Corsica stalls like 6 times on me and it's the best I can do to just get it out of traffic. So I leave a white bag shut in my door, cause I don't know what else to do and don't want to leave the 4ways on, because I don't know how long I'll be gone and I don't want to add a dead battery to the list of what may or may not be wrong, and I start to walk back towards work, because I don't have a cell phone.

Now, all I have to do is cross the 33 overpass, cross Freemansburg Ave. and walk across the parking lot. Except that it's like 20 degrees out and windy as all hell. And I have asthma. So by the time I get back to Michaels, I'm freezing cold and can barely breathe.

So I go into the office to call Carl to cancel my plans and call AAA to come get my car. Except that since my AAA plus membership hasn't started yet, I can't get my car towed to Ernie's (A&E Diagnostic in Allentown - very trustworthy, I highly recommend them) because I'm over in Bethlehem township and only can be towed either 5 miles or back to the garage that picked me up.

So, my car is currently sitting at Easton Auto Body. I can't badmouth them because I don't know anything about them an so far at least, they've been good to me. But I'm paranoid because I don't know anything about them and have had a couple of very bad experiences with mechanics. I might walk over to Ernie's this morning and see if he knows anything about Easton Auto Body that might make me feel better.

But I'll still be nervous because the last mechanic other than Ernie that we went to was a friend of a family member who came highly recommended but turned out to not be particularly reliable. He gave us great prices, but the work tended to match the too good to be true prices, or it took him days and days to get around to it.

*sigh*