Post Grads Hate: Broken Cars

My car is a bit of a lemon. I am very much aware of this. Even so, I love her. She is a trooper and has gotten me through many a road trip, late night Taco Bell run, and basic every day trips around town.

Monday morning, the Shikar, as she is so lovingly named, decided not to start. My first thought was "Shit, I don't have jumper cables on me." My next thought was, "F**k this is probably going to cost money." And finally, I thought enough to call my boss to tell him I'd be late.

I held out hope that my battery was dead until I finally got the jumper cables, tried to jump the car, and got no response. The engine still wouldn't even try to turnover. Which meant one of 2 things: my battery was so far gone it had to be replaced, or there was something else that was broken.

I am very lucky in that Boss Man has a spare car he is letting me borrow while mine is broken, but I still had to get the poor Shikar to a mechanic somehow. Translation: I had to PAY to get the Shikar TOWED to a mechanic. And all this before I would even know what was really wrong with her.

I got the call this morning, at work, with the diagnosis. She needs a new starter. On top of the struts I already knew she needed. Those things are a liiiitle more expensive than a new battery.

I love my car, but I hate how unpredictable the costs associated with it are. I never know when some vital part is going to decide to stop working. And I don't know which part it will be. I feel like a lot of Post Grads have this same issue. We work so hard to budget our money to afford life, to pay off our loans, to be able to take a trip home for one holiday out of the year. When our cars break down it can be really detrimental.

As always, the Shikar has taught me that I am grateful for even having a car, and that I should somehow learn how to plan for these things better.

People These Days

It's been a very trying couple of days, several have which have had police involvement.

This morning I went out to my car to go to a friend's going away brunch. I got in the drivers side, started the car, and noticed that my passengers side window was down. It's been raining for 2 days and I rarely put that window down anyway so I was confused to say the least. Then I looked around the rest of my car. The glove box was open, the compartment in the middle of my seats was open and my work laptop was gone. My car had been broken into.

It is strange really. My car is not one I would ever think to break in to. No matter how much I love it, it's a piece of crap. And there is never anything worth stealing in it, nothing that I own anyway. Yet this is the 2nd time in 6 months someone has tried.

I used to never lock my car. I still rarely lock it, but know better in certain places. Columbia Heights, DC being one of them. That is where I was last night when it was broken into. The perpetrator forced my passenger side window down and went through everything. Last time nothing was taken, this time I am grateful that what was taken wasn't technically mine.

On my drive to the brunch all I could think was "how is this person even going to benefit from stealing the laptop?" It is password protected with all the best security on it because of the nature of my job. The only way anyone could make money off of this crime would be to sell its parts. That seems like a lot of work to me.

I hope that this next week is less eventful. Or at the very least eventful in a different way.

Junk In My Trunk

This weekend, the search for my next vehicle finally came to an end. I'm trading in my 2002 Dodge Neon for a 2008 Hyundai Elantra. I thought I would be filled with joy when I finally found a replacement for the car that has given me one problem after another for years.... but I'm actually feeling very nostalgic. My little red neon was my first car and has been through a lot with me. My last two years of high school, four years of college, and it even survived it's first Rochester winter.

Today as I cleaned out my car, I was amazed at how much I had collected in the vehicle during our 7 year relationship. Here's some of what I found.

-Literally fifty mixed cds. Before the days of the ipod, I made mixed cds for all of my car trips. I can't wait to listen to the cd's and relive my high school years one Dashboard Confessional song at a time.

-Two tripods. Anyone want one?? haha

-Three flashlights. None with working batteries.

-Directions to SUNY Geneseo from the first time I ever drove up alone (I'm thinking about framing those)

-3 tennis balls. I'm guessing these were from the summer Shikole and I tried to learn to play tennis together??

-A picnic blanket

I know soon I'll adjust to my new Elantra, but I can't help but be sad about all of the memories I'll be leaving behind when I drive away from the car on the lot. I hope the Neon's next owner has as many good memories as I have had with the car (and hopefully not as many repairs!!)

The Midas Touch?

I spent the last 3 hours of my Saturday morning at the mechanic. I'm driving home to New York next weekend and wanted to make sure everything looked good under the hood so I didn't end up broken down on the side of the road. I asked the mechanics to replace my burnt out headlight, change my oil, check the pressure on my tires. Routine things.

And wouldn't you know it, as usual they find that there are actually 3482850 things wrong with my car. The brakes are shot, the struts are leaking, my compressor needs to be replaced and on and on and on. It's hard to know what these things actually do, how much they should cost and if they are important to replace unless you are, well, a mechanic.

I have had piece of crap cars all my life. In high school Allison and I were stranded more times than I can count because my car decided it hated me. There was the time the key wouldn't turn in the ignition (yes I know how to start a car, thank you, it literally would not turn), the time I got a flat on the way to meet our New Visions class for a field trip, the time putting the car in drive wouldn't make it go, the time it wouldn't even shift out of Park...you get the idea.

I have had my Neon, lovingly known in my group of friends as "the Shi-kar," for going on 6 years now, and almost everything in it has been replaced since I got it. By now the inside of the car is mostly new, except for the things the mechanic decided to list this morning. Being a post grad on a budget with a crappy car is impossibly stressful. I had to decide which of the things listed was actually important to get replaced/repaired now, versus what I can maybe save up to replace in the future.

I decided brakes were important for a trip home and that struts could wait. I don't even know what they do and the very attractive mechanic informed me that I'll be fine waiting. However, I still am much more in debt to my car than I was planning on when I asked for a new headlight and an oil change.