A couple of weeks later my desktop computer just ... stopped working. No 'KaBOOM' moment, it was merely a quiet vampire-byte of self-destruction. It cost exactly $695 to replace it. And the new computer is not as fast as the one it replaced.
I have been talking (not always here) about how bad luck ALWAYS comes in threes. (Last year it was my dishwasher, my clothes washer, and my clothes drier which all self-destructed in a short time period; I was lucky, my landlord paid for and installed a used dishwasher at no cost to me.) In the course of these discussions, I postulated that the third Bad Luck moment would probably be the failure of some expensive mechanical 'thing' which I always take for granted. Such as, for example, my car.
Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. I went to the State Capital this afternoon for a "GRENZ RAY" treatment on my hands (which, incidentally, is working pretty good) and on my way back home I pulled off into a parking lot in Albany to take a cell phone call. Then I tried to do a 3-point turn to get back onto the street. My car, the "Damned Old Ford" (DOF) stuttered, and died.
I spent 40 minutes trying to restart it ... it acted like an ignition problem, or a fuel-pump problem, or maybe electronics. I don't know, we've already established that I am a deadly force of destruction when it comes to Mechanical Objects (including Light Bulbs).
Finally, I called Triple A. They sent a tow truck, which carted The DOF and The Geek back home to Wilson Motors. The Wilson Boys took my name, phone number, and told me to give them two hundred dollars for diagnosis and they would call me in the morning.
Question for the audience: How much do you think this is going to cost me?
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As an aside, apropos of nothing at all, Colonel Jeff Cooper (in his "Gargantuan Gunsite Gossip" collections, either #1 or #2) had a favorite saying which I am reminded of in moments like this:
There ain't nothing that you can't fix
With seven-hundred dollars and a 30-06
Yes, I have a .30-06. I'm just tired of having to pony up the $700 every time I turn around.
2 comments:
It just goes to show the value of regular preventive maintenance. To answer you question as to how much it is going to cost to fix the DOF? Probably more than it is worth.
Antipoda
You coulda saved yerself the $200 by acquiring a $40 OBD-2 code reader. Then you tell the service intake guy what the codes are and they go to work.
I have a Ford product, a Mazda/Ranger pickup, and the code reader has probably saved me a thou so far, because I go to the service manual and fix my own damn truck. The parts markup is all the profit they make from me. The only repairs I had to job out were a clutch and a differential rebuild. I've done all the engine stuff myself.
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