I thought my credit card balance was looking far too healthy, so I took my car in for a service today. I realised when I got into the car how filthy it looked… how embarrassing, taking it to the service place in such a state. Ah well.
So I dropped it off and went into work. I’d barely had time to get in the door when the car place rang. Couldn’t be good news, could it? Hell no – just as expected, the money pit strikes again. Problems with the drive shaft, the muffler, gasket, etc, etc… yes Mr Bowen, you’re looking at about $800 worth of repairs. And the beautiful thing is if I don’t do it, it’ll probably cost me a lot more in future.
I love my car. While I don’t drive it a great deal, I love the freedom it gives me. But I do get the feeling it is fast moving into lemon status. It’s ten years old this year, and one of these days I’m going to crack and say: No, I will not repair it this time. I will keep running it come hell or high water, and when it finally breaks, I’ll sell its remains to Pick A Part (or possibly try and devise a "How to destroy your car" exercise) and either buy a new car, or stick to public transport and my bicycle.
There is good news though: I have somewhere new to live. Yesterday I applied for a house to rent – 3 bedroom, weatherboard, not excessively luxurious, but fairly cheap rent (so I can save for somewhere to buy), good location, big back yard. All good. And since I’m probably close to being the ideal tenant, it was approved pretty promptly.
My soon-to-be-former-landlady says she told them "if all my clients were like him, I wouldn’t be quitting" when they did the reference check, which would have helped. And since the place I’m moving out of is being internally pulled apart and renovated, her instructions to me were "don’t do anything" in the way of cleaning when I move out. This could be the easiest bond money I ever recover.
Now I have to pull my finger out and organise all the services to be connected, get some boxes to pack my plethora of books and videos into, and arrange the movers.
