The Beach Slum

    Yesterday was... a rough day for Dani.     I got her back from the mechanics, because they couldn't find anything wrong. Every test drive came up perfect, the transmission repair guy came, drove her, checked the transmission out electronically and manually. She was fine.     I took her back, and drove her. She still felt weird to me. But I couldn't say for sure, because what did a new transmission feel like? I don't know.     Then, her thermostat started being weird. Remember how I said she drove eleven hours without overheating?  Suddenly she started overheating. Nothing too crazy, but every time I slowed down, her temperature went up, and every time I sped up, it went back down.     It was only when I got home and parked that I heard the noise. An ominous sound. I didn't want to look under the hood, I didn't. I didn't. But I was nothing if not very "curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back". I was nothing if ...

      Okay. I guess I knew better.      It's not that I don't trust the owner's son, it's that he hadn't been with my car from day one. So when he said it should only take a couple of days to break in the transmission, and when Alex said I should be fine if I followed the rules he gave me, I took both pieces of information as a green light.     ROOOOOAAAD TRIIIIIIP     I swear to God, I took those hills slowly, like he said. I went into the truck lane for every single hill and slowed down. Dani went to 80mph twice  and both times were on a downgrade and on accident. I kept her at 70mph like the whole drive.     When I was leaving the California tollbooth, where I stopped, I accidentally punched the accelerator like I would have in the old days. Her transmission flooded, and I lost acceleration while the RPMs shot the fuck up. Okay, okay. No big deal. I pulled over. I waited. I tried again.     She worked fine, so...

 I’m writing this in a Discount Tire, because Dani needed her tires rotated and balanced, and Discount Tire not only sends reminders, but they do it for free! Why wouldn’t I take care of the tires? They cost me $600. One of them, the wheels or the rim or something, is slightly bent, they said, but it’s not a safety concern and they see it all the time.  (Knowing Dani, she’ll drive perfectly until it blows out. Mad respect, Dani. But don’t.) On my way back to my hotel room— because ya girl did a staycation; I wanted to go to the beach but Dani needed a transmission and, okay, I also wanted to get totally railed, and I can’t at my sister’s house— I called my mechanics, because, you know? This has been a shitshow month, but Dani and I persevered. We endured. We endured shitty California mechanics, and horrible transmission timing, and a current financial state that is, to say it bluntly, dire. But we have always made it out alive. My credit cards have been nearly maxed out for he...

      I think we all know I love my car a stupid amount. Like, that's obvious from the fact that I have a blog dedicated to her, and spent like six posts on the various repairs she needed. I don't have to tell you.     Has anyone picked up on the specific person I've been alluding to? Specifically in the post where I said someone said I was miserable, burnt out, and my car was a money pit? Who asked me why I loved her so much?     Yeah... I went on another date with that person today, and I, once again, went on and on about my car, because he had to pick me up and wanted to know what happened to my car again, and is that why I disappeared for a while? (It was.)     He asked, again, why I loved my car so much.     I kind of dodged it again, but the answer-- that she was outright mine-- was on the tip of my tongue. I would have cried though, and I wasn't about to cry at ten am in a parking lot, so I just answered without answering. ...