gimpy la rue

Disclaimer: what happened in reality and what happened in my head may very well be two different realities.

I have a strange attachment to my 16 year old pickup truck. It's turquoise with flowers on the mats and steering wheel, 1/4 of a deck of cards strung across the back and when you hit a bump in the road you feel it. real bad. wearing a sports bra in my car might be a wise decision for all occasions. In the summer, I have Rita's picnics in the bed of my truck with my compadres.

Did I mention that I love my truck?

But recently it's been wonky. Like, wouldn't drive it long distances because I was afraid it was going to die. I was 1,000 miles overdue for an oil change, my tires were waring down unevenly and to top it off during monsoon season, my windshield wipers broke.

I go to PepBoys for the windshield and tires
1) Tires are A-OK and the guy says not to worry about it too much
2) All I needed was to go inside and purchase 18'' wipers, bring them outside and they'd put them on for me.

The latter was free of charge. Just cost me the wipers. No service fee.

Today, I went for the oil change.
Turns out there was more wrong than I thought. Gimp needed the 4x4 fluid to be changed in the back and was 11,000 overdue to get that fixed. The mechanic said it was all black and sludgy and the fluid needed to replace or my axles would be effed up for a measly $60. No problem. I also asked if they could rotate my tires and confessed that I was one of those chicks who didn't know shit about cars. I also asked for him to check the transmission. He seemed empathetic.

Results:
1) Transmission fluid is still red and kicking. He suggested that if I needed new transmission fluid to go to somewhere that offers a warantee because he couldn't over 100,000 miles. Honest. Didn't lie to me to extort money because I was some chick who didn't know shit about cars. I didn't even know transmission was supposed to be red.
2) I check out when my car is finished being repaired and they only charged me for the oil change, leaving off the $80+ that it would've cost me for the 4x4 repair and my tires.

[How did I know that they really did this if it didn't show up on the receipt? He was animate about changing the 4x4 fluid as it was hazardous to my safety not to. The wonky tire used to be on the passenger rear side, now is on passenger front. They did rotate!]

3) Jiffy Lube has free coffee. Yay!
4) There were two friendly individuals also waiting to get their cars done. Instead of sitting around in the awkward waiting room in silence, we all conversed and bitched together and it was grand. When I left, one of the men even said "See you later, Alison!" and waved.

People are great. Mmhm.
So is my truck!

Guess what comes out to theatres that aren't miles and miles away from where I live on FRIDAY? Away We Go! I really dig Sam Mendes. And Maya and John and Allison freakin Janney.

Good things, they are a'brewin.

aliee