Hello, ye olde interweb!

It has been a while. I admit that I have been lax in my duties as the gatekeeper of awesomeness known as the Fun Time Happy Hour. I will buy you all a round the next time we hang out!

So... The world has carried on, as it has been known to do, while I have been away, toiling and plotting my scheme for global domination. It is so nice to know that the world can be counted on in that regard.

I have once again asserted my power and awesomeness by fixing my own car ...again. (Note, this was a second problem, and not a failure of my previous fix.) This time it was the air conditioning. Seeing as we have come to the official start of summer, I figured it was high time to get my A/C up and running again. In fairness, it has been broken for well over a year, and since I don't typically mind rolling the windows down, I just didn't bother with it... I mean the heat still worked through the fall, winter, and early spring, so I was ok for a lot of that time... But remembering how I had to sweat it out all last summer, I figured I should probably just go ahead and do what needed to be done.

You might recall from my previous posting about fixing my own vehicle, you probably have a vague recollection of what was going on... If not, here's a refresher.

Almost 2 years ago, I was driving back down south after a trip to visit my mom, and about halfway into the trip my A/C stopped working. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been a HUGE problem, except it was mid-afternoon, mid-August, it was the South, and oh yeah--my windows wouldn't roll down at the time either... and I still had a good three hours to go in my road trip. I had no choice but to sweat it out that time. And upon completion of that trip, the ability to roll down my windows was far more important to me than the A/C... Besides, with the A/C not running, I enjoyed better fuel economy, which was fine by me! So I fixed the windows. Not long after that trip was when the engine mount said sayonara, and we all know I let that go on rattling for WAY longer than I probably should have. But while I was having an oil change, and the mechanic was telling me about the engine mount being a serious problem that he wanted me to dump $500 on, I mentioned that my A/C had died, and that I wasn't sure if I'd just thrown a belt or if I had something more serious going on. The guy looked at it, and said yes, I'd thrown a belt, but it was because the pulley wheel was locked up... So that'll be another $300 to fix. HA! Isn't that cute!

I told him I wasn't interested in either fix once we got down to brass tacks, and I let both problems persist for a long time. Well, that engine mount is still fine, so my car is still purring like a kitten, and on Tuesday after work, I decided that I wasn't going to sweat it out for another summer... I mean I wasn't going to drop three hundred bones on paying someone else to fix it, but if I could fix it myself, I would happily pay for the new parts and get that shit handled. So, riding on the ego boost from my last fix, I waltzed into the auto parts store in my bright pink shirt, and the grizzled character behind the counter asked me what he could help me find as I browsed the shelves looking to pick up some WD40 while I was out.

"Hey, can I help you find something?"

"Yeah... I'm looking for some WD40 over here, but you..."

"Oh it's right ove..." He tried talking over me, but I had already grabbed a can and proceeded with completing my sentence.

"Yeah, it's right here... I was saying, while I was looking for the size I wanted, you can go ahead and pull me an A/C compressor belt and a new tension pulley wheel for my Nissan."

"OH!? ...You need a pulley wheel?"

"Yeah, and I need the belt that runs on it. Is that a problem?"

"Well, no, but how do you know that you need a pulley wheel?"

"Because I know that the one I have now is locked up, and would throw a belt... Which is why I need BOTH."

"Oh... Well, I mean do you know it's the pulley wheel that is locked up, and not one of the other wheels?"

"Well, the other wheels are attached to the drive shaft in my engine and the compressor in the A/C unit. The A/C unit wheel, I can still turn by hand with ease. And if the one attached to the engine wasn't working, my car wouldn't be getting really far, and I'd have bigger problems, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh. Yeah, I guess so."

"Was it the pink shirt that threw you?"

(Crickets chirped as he stood there dumbfounded.)

"So, about those parts..."

"Coming right up."

After this rather insulting exchange, and the bargain price of $55 bucks for the pulley wheel, the belt, and the WD40, I went home, laid down in my driveway, and fixed that shit like it was nobody's business... So now my hot ass is only hot in the best possible way.

And as I write this, it occurs to me that I have these intensely sexist and insulting types of conversations a lot lately... While I do have a problem with the remarkable frequency that I have to bitch slap a guy and put him in his place, I admit, it is kind of fun to verbally kick these guys in their teeny tiny junk, and take them all down a peg or two... It's either that, or I'm going to have to get my hair cut super short, stop shaving my legs and armpits, and make a concerted effort to embody every other insulting stereotype that would lead these fellas to believe that I'm not the delicate flower they take me for.