Ante Up

Or:  Our Inexorable Decline

For those of you playing along at home, and/or anyone who has money in the game, this is the score:

• 1 New Transmission (Matt's car)
• 2 Volvo Dealer visits (my car)
• 3 Hundred dollars spent, fruitlessly (my car)
• 4 Bloggers, who've quit, only after I finished reading all their archives. (Finnian's Journey just closed up shop. Technically she just moved, but the list doesn't work if we're being technical).
• 5 Durable goods, down.    

In addition to both cars breaking this winter, painfully chronicled here, here, and here (and also getting rear ended in October), the ginormous living room TV died just before New Years, and then the mini party-fridge, that gets passed around the family but technically we bought, also died, just after.  If I had to pick a new header right now, it would be a picture of me, photoshopped into a scene from the 2012 movie, holding up a sign saying We're Dooooommmmmeeedddd.....!

But, since we're still pretending things will be OK, the 2nd dealer visit (yesterday) resulted in only a $30 charge ....+ the $25 in gas Matt put in the loaner, only to have our car ready within the hour.  How often does that happen?  Apparently the trick is to ply them with gasoline. They said all of our Car Drama has been because of one lone corroded wire.  Amusingly called the "Exciter Wire". 

I am not clear on why, when first given the task of finding out why our vehicle seemed determined to drive us Insane, by intermittently-not-starting-only-to-start-fine-several-hours-later, the dealer would not check the electronics, including the wires connecting said electronics, responsible for said vehicle STARTING, but that's just me being particular.  I am grateful they didn't tell us we needed a new starter motor.  Because by yesterday I was out of fight.  My car had defeated me and I just wanted to appease it. By throwing money at it. Hell, I would have painted it pink and driven it nekkid if only it promised to START when requested.   

So I'm not sure if we can count my car in the "out" column.  At a minimum, it has caused enough grief to warrant an honorable mention. Not to mention the inconvenience and Drama for the extended family who kept having to rescue us from strange places, pick us up in the dark of night, and generally shuttle us around [A big thank you again!].  It was made worse because we held off on dealer visit #2, expecting another big bill & thus causing much interim inconvenience, only to have the solution be on the cheap side (This time.  I'm not actually expecting this to have fixed the problem.  Because that'd be too easy). 

So we'll call the score 4.5 up.  [Or down?  My metaphors are running wild.]  Any takers on the next big ticket item to die?  Anyone?  We're offering excellent odds over here!  Water heater?  Furnace?  Dishwasher?  Oh! The fun we're having! 

[PS.  The spacing issue is also driving me nuts. I hit two spaces automatically, except when I remember I Was Wrong, and only hit one.  So now I just look inconsistent.]