Friday, August 17, 2012

Addendum To: Now I Am Officially Broke

I forgot to mention my car.  It's breaking down again.

The big things that's happened is the ever-metastasizing pool of fluid in the driveway where I park my car.  I've had leaks for a long time, they were just inconspicuous because I always parked it in the garage.  Now that is being inhabited by Mother's new Benz and a Porsche Father is still trying to fix.

I have noticed that the dark spots on the driveway have gotten larger over the past weeks.  But one day earlier this week the fucking thing grew like a weed.  Father woke me up and took my car out for something.  When I checked the driveway to see if he was gone, what I saw instead was this huge pool of ... car effluvia.  Worse yet, I thought I could catch from the sunlight reflection of what appeared to be a mound of fluid, as if the oil or transmission fluid or antifreeze didn't just evaporate but there was so much spilled that there is some that still need to evaporate.

I didn't think it was a big deal until I realized that I was ruining the driveway.  It is my parents', and it certainly isn't mine to make ugly.  It is an eyesore, and I want to be responsible in stopping this.  But I can't tell them I don't have the money to fix the car, and there's certainly no way I can literally clean up the dark spots on the driveway.

Moreover, I'm pouring fluids into my car just as fast as it's going out of my car.  A while ago my car began making noises when steering.  I was afraid it was mechanical, but when I checked under the hood I saw the power steering tank empty.  It was the first time I ever had to refill the power steering container.  But I've done it a lot lately, including Tuesday and today.  Moreover, the coolant tank (which I have refilled from time to time over the years) was dead-empty for the second time in the past three days.  I thought that the reason may have been my air conditioner; lately it's been making a very guttural noise after operating for a while, and even after it stops I hear what I can only describe as a 3-D sound accompanying the engine.  But I made a point of keeping the A/C off (although I turned the fan on) yesterday and I still had to fill it up.

My plan, because I'm broke, is to baby the thing until my parents really bitch about it.  They think I make enough money to fix this, so I can't tell them what I'm really planning on doing.  Unless it's just a bad hose or clamp, I don't have the money I'll probably need to pay to get this repaired.  And think about this: There's a good chance the two problems I just described, the leaks and the filling of the fluids, are two separate issues.  My new mechanic has told me that there are oil leaks, and yet I have to fill up the tranny and steering fluids.  What if I need to deal with both?

Today when I was doing my checks Father came out.  He was worried about the car and mentioned, "The car is very old now."  And for the first time I totally agree with him.  There is another car, the M-B SUV, that was supposed to be my sister's, in storage.  Should I even bother to fix this?  And would I even have the money to fix it if I wanted to?

Fuck my life.

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