The new used car honeymoon is over

Boy am I tired. Understandably. I finally got home at 11:00 p.m. last night.

I'll spare you most of the gory details, but the car is fixed and all it cost me was 15 bucks and dinner at Wendy's.

It was indeed a belt problem, which even I was able to determine when I left work and raised the hood at my uncle's request. No belt at all would indeed seem to be a problem. So I picked the kid up and arranged to meet Uncle at an exit off the highway just outside of downtown, since he knows nothing about downtown Dallas and I haven't exactly seen any auto parts stores around there anyway.

In the meantime, he called Auto Zone, who informed him that the belt controlled the power steering and the alternator.

Oh. So THAT'S what the power steering and the battery light have to do with each other.

The alternator was kind enough to get me outside of downtown, but when after parking initially in front of Wal Mart, I decided to drive over across the parking lot and park in front of Best Buy so I could run in while I was waiting, the battery light started flashing and frantically "ding ding ding"ing at me. The radio also suddenly shut itself off, I assume to save resources.

That is one smart car, lemme tell ya. It's like it thinks.

Anyway, as you can imagine from my 11pm arrival at home, it took some time to go get the belt and put it on etc etc but the car is fixed and I'm not even broke as a result.

The new used car honeymoon is definitely over, though.

It didn't leave me stranded, but it would have if I'd tried to go any farther than I did. Much like seeing my car on a tow truck, my feelings about cars change after the first time they let me down mechanically. No more "Lalalalala, look at me in my new used car, woohoo!"

I am sure that the car is fine now; it doesn't have many miles on it and was well taken care of by the little old lady who had it before me.

How do I know a little old lady had it before me? Trust me. Only a little old lady could average 5800 miles a year on a car.

I just hope she appreciates that the belt issue happened to me and not to her.

Then again, maybe it happened because the car is freaking out. I told you, it's like the car thinks. "Oh shit. Somebody's like, driving me for REAL now. We can't have that, I'm getting tired. I know, I'll break a belt. That'll slow this bitch down (evil laugh)."

No, Sally, I hate to tell ya, but it won't. Get used to it.