This has been my view since 7:00am this morning:

It is now almost 9:00am.  I came here today for an oil change and 70K mile maintenance check on my Subaru Forrester, since we are planning on taking it to the Cape next week. For the past couple of days, I’ve also been hearing light squeaking when I drive in reverse down the driveway. Since I was leaving work early today anyway, to bring Rita Mae to the vet’s for her rabies shot, I decided to take the whole day off  and get my oil change done in the AM, too.

I hate “car stuff” and usually leave it to Jeffrey to handle any kind of service on them. I’m incredibly uncomfortable in garage settings, knowing nothing about cars, even my own, and am like a deer in headlights when they start spouting off that my frammerjammer needs a tune up or my sproingkladdle is going to fall off.  But I’m trying to be a big boy and handle more of this stuff on my own, so I brought the car in this morning for what I was hoping was a 45 minute visit.

No such luck.  My back brake pads have worn thin and need to be replaced, as well as 4 or 5 other items that need attending to, although not immediately critical. I was originally going to extend my stay by an hour to get just the brake pads replaced, but decided it made more sense, since I have the day off and I’m already here, to just get it all done now, instead of having to come back. Needless to say, I’m going to be here an extra 2 hours and my bill just increased a hundredfold.

No good deed goes unpunished.

The only real silver lining, aside from having my car in good shape for the 4.5 hour road trip to and from Ptown next week, is that I turned my 4 day work week into a 3 day work week. (Friday is a Pass Day – I’m getting my Remicade infusion and hopefully discussing my coughing/acid reflux/possible hernia or GERD with my GI.) With few exceptions, I’d rather be almost anywhere but work.

Here’s hoping they don’t discover I have a broken chumflorg while they’re replacing my brake pads and tuning up my wiggledimp.