Sunday, February 22, 2015

Car Repairs

I gave up working on cars years ago. It is extremely annoying and makes me irritable and grumpy. Why? Because things never go right, there isn’t room to get to anything, and usually multiple trips to the store searching for some obscure tool is involved. I decided I’d rather make a payment on a decent car than spend the same amount or more on repairs. Life is easier that way.

But sometimes, I still find myself lying under a vehicle with wrenches, or reaching down into places too small for my hand to fit, or just staring at the engine, hoping for inspiration. Maybe I’m hoping it will fix itself. For some reason, that never happens.

This past week, the alternator on my wife’s car went out. I tried suggesting she should fix it. But that was met with a less than favorable response. And so, since I do not like paying the exorbitant fee for a mechanic—$120.00 an hour is a little ridiculous—the job fell to me.

It used to be, changing an alternator took only a couple of wrenches and about ten or fifteen minutes. But times change. Now, it takes longer than that just to find the alternator. And then once it is located, an entire arsenal of tools is required (and several hours) to figure out how to get the old one off and the new one on. By the time I was finished, I remembered very clearly why I stopped working on cars.

The good news is, it’s done. Everything is back together and I didn’t end up with any extra nuts or bolts. I got very few scrapes and cuts on my hands and made only one trip to the store. All in all, not a bad experience. And for those who may be wondering, yes, it works! Hey, I never said I didn’t know how to fix cars, just that I didn’t like to. Guess I could go into business as a mechanic. At $120.00 an hour, the pay would be good, but my wife probably would rather I not. There’s something about me being irritable and grumpy that she finds annoying.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice-President of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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