So I had an appointment with the shrink today.
It was scheduled for 1 PM. I was up at 10. Took my time, had breakfast and a shower, headed out to the garage at 12:30. The doctor’s office is only like 5 minutes away by car, but I like to give myself a little extra time whenever I go somewhere in case calamity strikes.
As it did toady.
See, for a little while now I’ve been having trouble with my solenoid. This trouble basically amounted to the car not starting unless I got out, opened the hood and tapped on the top of the solenoid till it did finally start. So a few weeks ago I bought a new solenoid, it was only $14, but I didn’t have time to put it in right away, so it got tossed into the box of parts in my trunk.
Well ever since I bought the new part the old one started working fine. I figured when I was monkeying around in there and tightened the positive battery wire that I had found the actual problem and the old part was fine. In the trunk the new solenoid would stay till I needed it.
So I turn the key. I get a kind of “thunk/bzzt” kinda sound and then nothing. I open the hood, tap the solenoid, get back in the car, try again, and it cranks, but doesn’t fire. I check the wire connections and notice that the battery wire is hot and there’s a bit of acrid white smoke coming from the solenoid. But I’m in a hurry so I figure if I can just get it started and get to my appointment I’ll swap out the solenoid before the trip home.
Crossing my fingers I crank it again and it just cranks and cranks and the smoke starts to pour. I turn the key off and the engine keeps cranking. I take the key out and the engine keeps cranking. So I jump out of the car and grab the now extremely hot battery wire in an attempt to pull it off the battery and break the connection. In doing so I end up pulling the melted innards of the solenoid and getting a nice strong whif of the surely carcinogenic vapors pouring out of it.
Now I have ten minutes till my appointment and I’ve just disabled my car. Why am I so worried about the appointment you ask? Well see, Medicaid (and thereby you taxpayers) pays for my shrink, but not if I miss an appointment. So if I don’t show up, or fail to give 24 hours notice before canceling then I have to pay for the missed session. I’ve never even asked how much they’re charging (cause I don’t care) but I know that it’s more than the diddly-squat I can afford to pay out of my own pocket. At this point I can either call someone and try to get a ride, taking the chance that I’ll miss the whole appointment in the process, or I can change the part.
All I can say is thanks God I own a car built in the era when they made them easy to fix, because I swapped that fucker out (a fun process given that most of the parts were red hot and/or connected to a live battery) and still was only ten minutes late for the appointment.
The taxpayers lose again! Ha-ha-ha!
On a side note, I’m sitting in my living room as I type this and through my barely open front door I’m watching my crazy neighbor bitch throwing things at my other neighbor’s house. Just yesterday crazy neighbor bitch accused Nate’s girlfriend of bumping one of their cars the day before when she pulled out of her parking spot. Her stupid ass husband mentioned it to Jay too. I’ve managed to avoid both of them thus far and thereby haven’t been dragged into it yet, but I know they’re frothing at the mouth to catch me going in or coming out of the house so they can say something.
You may remember Jr and Cathy (crazy neighbor bitch) from previous posts. They have a history of making insane accusations and just generally being a pain in my ass. For this reason I’ve gotten very good at avoiding them. Now there’s apparently some sort of feud and my house lies in between the ones in question. I’m sure this will make for interesting posts real soon.
I just know I’m gonna have to be the person to kill their stupid fucking asses…
It was scheduled for 1 PM. I was up at 10. Took my time, had breakfast and a shower, headed out to the garage at 12:30. The doctor’s office is only like 5 minutes away by car, but I like to give myself a little extra time whenever I go somewhere in case calamity strikes.
As it did toady.
See, for a little while now I’ve been having trouble with my solenoid. This trouble basically amounted to the car not starting unless I got out, opened the hood and tapped on the top of the solenoid till it did finally start. So a few weeks ago I bought a new solenoid, it was only $14, but I didn’t have time to put it in right away, so it got tossed into the box of parts in my trunk.
Well ever since I bought the new part the old one started working fine. I figured when I was monkeying around in there and tightened the positive battery wire that I had found the actual problem and the old part was fine. In the trunk the new solenoid would stay till I needed it.
So I turn the key. I get a kind of “thunk/bzzt” kinda sound and then nothing. I open the hood, tap the solenoid, get back in the car, try again, and it cranks, but doesn’t fire. I check the wire connections and notice that the battery wire is hot and there’s a bit of acrid white smoke coming from the solenoid. But I’m in a hurry so I figure if I can just get it started and get to my appointment I’ll swap out the solenoid before the trip home.
Crossing my fingers I crank it again and it just cranks and cranks and the smoke starts to pour. I turn the key off and the engine keeps cranking. I take the key out and the engine keeps cranking. So I jump out of the car and grab the now extremely hot battery wire in an attempt to pull it off the battery and break the connection. In doing so I end up pulling the melted innards of the solenoid and getting a nice strong whif of the surely carcinogenic vapors pouring out of it.
Now I have ten minutes till my appointment and I’ve just disabled my car. Why am I so worried about the appointment you ask? Well see, Medicaid (and thereby you taxpayers) pays for my shrink, but not if I miss an appointment. So if I don’t show up, or fail to give 24 hours notice before canceling then I have to pay for the missed session. I’ve never even asked how much they’re charging (cause I don’t care) but I know that it’s more than the diddly-squat I can afford to pay out of my own pocket. At this point I can either call someone and try to get a ride, taking the chance that I’ll miss the whole appointment in the process, or I can change the part.
All I can say is thanks God I own a car built in the era when they made them easy to fix, because I swapped that fucker out (a fun process given that most of the parts were red hot and/or connected to a live battery) and still was only ten minutes late for the appointment.
The taxpayers lose again! Ha-ha-ha!
On a side note, I’m sitting in my living room as I type this and through my barely open front door I’m watching my crazy neighbor bitch throwing things at my other neighbor’s house. Just yesterday crazy neighbor bitch accused Nate’s girlfriend of bumping one of their cars the day before when she pulled out of her parking spot. Her stupid ass husband mentioned it to Jay too. I’ve managed to avoid both of them thus far and thereby haven’t been dragged into it yet, but I know they’re frothing at the mouth to catch me going in or coming out of the house so they can say something.
You may remember Jr and Cathy (crazy neighbor bitch) from previous posts. They have a history of making insane accusations and just generally being a pain in my ass. For this reason I’ve gotten very good at avoiding them. Now there’s apparently some sort of feud and my house lies in between the ones in question. I’m sure this will make for interesting posts real soon.
I just know I’m gonna have to be the person to kill their stupid fucking asses…
posted by Ford at
9:18 PM
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