In case you forgot...

I find it rather important to remind people from time to time just exactly how awesome I am.

Today I just got a somewhat more awesome. (Admittedly, I even amazed myself a little bit on this particular occasion!)

First, some back story.

A year and a half ago I was having some car trouble. My air conditioner stopped working just as summer was transitioning to fall... Seems easy enough to cope with, you say, the season is about to change, just roll down the windows when it gets hot... Yeah, but the master switch that controlled all the windows had been wonky bordering on non-functional for roughly 6 months prior to that. Incidentally, the air conditioner decided to crap out for real about 2 hours into a 6 hour road trip... in the middle of the day... in August. So basically it was really frickin' hot out, the A/C had just died, and I couldn't roll my windows down, and I had 4 hours left in my trip. UGH.

Not knowing where to go for a quick fix while out on the road, I struggled through the remaining 4 hours, sweating my ass off the whole way. Upon getting home, I figured it was time to replace the window switch at the very least. Being a thrifty gal, I went to the internet, did a little homework saw that it was an easy fix involving a little more than a screwdriver and a replacement switch, so I figured I could do it myself. I then ventured to the auto parts store got the part I needed and I changed it out. That was too easy to warrant mentioning. But fixing the A/C was a little more involved... I was due for an oil change so I went to the pros... Mind you, changing the oil is easy too, but since I had other issues, I figured the pros could diagnose it while they were already under the hood.

They looked at it, told me what was up, and so I know what's wrong with it, but I never did anything about it because I prefer to roll with the windows down anyway.

Skip forward in time about a week. (Still roughly 18 months ago.) I start hearing a rattling sound. Crap...

So I take it back to the pros attempting to pass the buck onto them saying, "I was just here, now I've got an unsettling rattle going on here... WTF?"

They took a complimentary look, to appease me, (and to cover their asses,) and 45 minutes later, told me that I had a bad engine mount.

"Yep, your engine mount is bad."

"Engine mount? As in, the thing that holds the motor part of my motor vehicle in the place where it needs to be? You mean that kind of engine mount?"

"Yeah... That about covers it."

"So, clearly this is an important part, what would that cost to fix?"

"Well, let me get an estimate written up."

[about 30 minutes later... I am incensed as they clearly know what is wrong, and how to fix it, and they are keeping me waiting for their own amusement... Also I had somewhere to be, and they were making me later and later by the second.]

"Yeah, so here's your estimate."

"FIVE HUNDRED SIXTY THREE DOLLARS!?!? WHAT?"

"Yeah... New parts plus 3.5 hours labor involved. That's the going rate."

"Ok, well, I have to be somewhere. In fact, I had to be somewhere 30 minutes ago when you went to get that estimate. So I don't have 3.5 hours or five hundred sixty three bucks to spend here at the moment."

"Oh, that's ok... We're getting ready to close anyway, there's no way we would get it fixed today."

"So, you have no intention of fixing it now... Interesting... (After a thoughtful pause to consider the exact subtext of the mechanic's previous statement, I continued) Ok, so, I get that this is an important part of my vehicle... But you're telling me that you're closing up, and don't plan on fixing it now anyway... So, are you implying that this is not a part that is so far gone that it is absolutely critical to fix tonight, and that my car is essentially more or less temporarily ok, as long as I can deal with that rattling?"

"Yeah, I mean it isn't un-drivable, you'll be fine for a while."

"Care to define 'a while' a little more clearly?"

"Nah, no telling really... You could hit a pothole tomorrow torque things all out of whack and be way worse off. Of course, you could be fine for a lot longer, as long as you're ok with that rattling, but I wouldn't advise any off-roading."

"It's a paid-off, ten-year-old four-door sedan... Not exactly off-roading material. As for things that could happen tomorrow, I could be hit by a bus, or consumed by a pack of wild dogs... I suppose I will have to take my chances at least until I can pay for the job."

"Ok, well, we'll see you then, I guess."

"MMM-HMMM..." (Which literally translated to, "At the rate you charge? Nope. Not a chance in hell.")

So skip forward to this past weekend. 18 months later, I am bothered by the rattling every day, and yet I have done nothing about it because I am fine with avoiding potholes if it saves me more than five hundred bones. I took a short road trip to visit my dad. As I pulled into the garage the rattling seemed to noticeably worsen. CRAP.

So I did all my visiting with the family, and drove home, paranoid about the worsening rattling. I parked my car, left it alone, did a little more homework on the old internet, and decided that surprisingly, it looked pretty easy, certainly not 3.5 hours worth of work, and if nothing else, it was worth a shot.

Not to bore you further, but I took out that old engine mount, (BTW, it was TOTALLY SHOT ALL TO HELL!) and replaced it with a spankin' new one. And BAM!!! My little vehicle is purring like a kitten again!

A fabulously timed ego-boost for me, because I fixed that shit all on my own using little more than google and a wrench!

So that fix cost me not $500, not $400, not $300, not $200, not even $100! It cost me a grand total of a glorious springtime afternoon spent working outside, a bruised palm, a cursory amount of frustration over some oxidized bolts, and $52 bucks for the new part.

So, yeah, I am a badass.

I am a reasonably attractive, intelligent, sports-loving, home-improving, car-fixing, badass, handy-dandy jack-of-all-trades marinated in awesomeness... Combine that with my fantastic sense of humor, classic aesthetic tastes, the fact that I can cook, and it kind of goes without saying that I'm going to make some man incredibly happy someday... Which is why I can afford to be picky.

In short, I am kind of a big deal...

BELIEVE IT.