Father Knows Best
When it came time for me to get a vehicle of my own, my father was the one who went around to every dealership with me, keenly negotiating, asking questions and testing each vehicle. When I had finally singled one out, it was he that insisted on the extended warranty, despite my pleas that I felt it wasn’t really necessary. In fact, I believe his words were something like “I don’t want you to have to worry about this vehicle for a long time,” and today I owe him a lifetime of gratitude for his insistence.
A couple weeks ago I broke the cup holder in my trusty SUV. Over time, I’ve also come to learn that the modern day vehicle is made with more wiring, computer programming and fuses than your whole house probably contains, so I wasn’t alarmed when the rear window stopped responding when I tried to roll it down. “A blown fuse,” I thought. Cup holders not being in short quantity in my vehicle and -24° weather not exactly being conducive to driving around with your windows down, I wasn’t in a hurry to get the stuff fixed. That is, until the car itself started sounding a little funny.
So last Friday I made an appointment at Ye Trusty SUV Dealership and dropped the little bugger off for its minor repairs. I called later that day only to find out that window -- fused replaced -- was still not responding and would require a part to get shipped in Monday morning. Monday I called only to find out that the part was in, but the window was giving many more problems and in the process of opening up the car, they asked if I had noticed the latches snapping on the doors as well as a slew of other things that needed to be fixed. Long story short (and sparing you from the captivating details of my car repairs), every day has been a new discovery of a new thing that apparently is not working up to par and almost a week later, I am still sans SUV. What’s more is that my name is now synonymous with ‘that car that gave us a lot of work’ around said dealership.
I know what you’re thinking. My great telekinetic and extrasensory powers tell me that you’re skeptical of the story and wonder if this is the typical tale of “Dealership Scams Naïve Girl” and without going into detail I’ll just assure you that it’s not. More importantly, though is the lesson to be learned: My car’s warranty would have expired approximately 10,000 miles ago, but thanks to my Dad (and a superb warranty) the majority of the things found are free of charge. Which just goes to show that sometimes, when young and naïve, one should just shut up and listen to their elders, because chances are that father really does know best.
As for my car, perhaps I’ll see it before my birthday.

posted by paula 12:14 PM

Weekend Recap
A lot of people have been wondering what we’re up to lately and admittedly, I’ve been saying that it’s really nothing to write home about. Despite the monotonous in-and-out of our daily lives, we’re doing quite well and I might venture to say, happier than ever before. Still, I’ve been prompted to let everyone know what we’re up to lately and so here, in short, is a typical weekend recap:

Friday Night:
- Home from work, but Ry has been working late on Fridays.
- Get home.
- Work out.
- Go to bed.
Saturday:
- Sleep until heart’s content.
- On an occasional weekend, head to Parade of Homes to tour several houses; remind ourselves that we live here not because of the wonderful economic conditions in the housing market, but because we are close to our friends and family.
- Realize that our money will not go as far as planned and return to square one: Should we build or buy?
- Exhausted, return home.
- Work out.
- Go to bed.
Sunday:
- Breakfast at Sidney’s.
- Window shop and Barnes and Noble.
- Return home, where we sufficiently clog kitchen sink.
- Read book while first bottle of Drano tries to unplug sink.
- Run miscellaneous errands, which include trips to Sam’s Club, a donation to Goodwill and our first trip to a SuperTarget.
- Remind ourselves that we don’t live here because we enjoy the -24° weather, but that we’re closer to our family and friends.
- Return home and try (again) to unplug sink with LiquidPlumr.
- Call maintenance, clean out area under sink in preparation for repairs.
- Work out.
- Go to bed.

See? Sounds terribly boring, but yet it fills our days. But I suspect that things will get busy again sometime very soon.

posted by paula 10:45 AM