Enough, Already!

Boy, my poor little old jeep has been taking a bunch of hits lately -or so it seems, anyway!

A while back, I was on my way into Philipsburg when the jeep started to act up on me and the steering got really difficult to manage. I had pulled into the Sheetz Store in P-burg and was going to see if I could "see" anything causing the problem (like I would know what to look for! Yeah, right!)  Anyway, when I pulled into their parking area, there was this car in front of me who came to a stop, so -naturally -I came to a stop too. I sat there, behind that car for a bit, waiting to see where the driver was going to go and all of a sudden, the car starts coming towards me, in reverse! I tried to hit the horn but before I could even find the right spot on the steering column (you have to hit an exact spot to get the horn to work, ya know) there was this Kaboom as the driver had backed into the front of my jeep! I was thinking Holy Crap! How much damage it is this going to do but upon getting out and looking the situation over, it was obvious that her car had sustained a hell of a lot more damage than the Jeep did! Matter of fact, the Jeep barely showed but a couple of little scratches.

The other driver did not want me to turn in a claim to insurance as she said their deductible was extremely high and I figured since the damage to the Jeep was truly minimal, that was not a problem for me. So, bottom line there is that although I had tried one time to contact her but she wasn't available, and since it really had very little effect on the Jeep, that I wouldn't even bother her further about the matter.

However, I did have to -that day -take the Jeep up to where by sometime-this-century-will-be-ex-son-in-law was working then to have him look to see what was causing the steering problems I had been having with the jeep prior to the little minor collision. Turned out that a belt was broken -one I'd never heard of before -but Mandy as well as my son both said it was an important belt (aren't they all?) to have it replaced and it's called a Serpentine Belt. Well, getting the belt replaced wasn't that difficult but finding some particular part that was needed for the jeep to re-install the belt provided quite a challenge for me to locate one! I don't remember the name of the part now but it took a whole lot of internet research before we finally located a place that had the necessary part!

After that, there was a smallish problem I had with one of the tires on the Jeep that had to be fixed. Again, nothing really huge but you know too how it is with the "nickel and dime" junk -once that starts, it seems to be a never-ending issue, doesn't it?

Then, there was one day about a month ago when -again, I was in Philipsburg doing some advertising sales for the cookbook -and went to back out from this one spot and the noise that came from under the car was sounding like the whole doggone undercarriage was falling apart and dragging on the ground. So -much to Mandy's chagrin -up I went to the garage where the "Billshitter" (new name my son has blessed the ex-son-in-law with of late) was working to have him check out the Jeep yet again. This time, it was that the exhaust pipe had come loose so he had used the "Bandaid and Baling Wire" routine then to tie it up and keep it from dragging -saving me a few bucks at that time, anyway! But, about two weeks ago, Mandy talked to a friend of hers (ours) who also is a mechanic and he had said he would put a new exhaust on the Jeep for me which apparently the old buggy is somewhat in need of that to be done.

I was going to try to see if I could scrounge up enough bucks to have the exhaust replaced this month but not sure as yet if I'll have enough coins for that or not -at least not just yet.

Last night though, I was getting ready to go to a meeting at church for our Women's Group when Mandy announced to me that it might be a good idea for me to call my neighbor and good friend, Kate, to hitch a ride out there to church with her because -of all things -one of the tires on the Jeep had now developed a slow leak and as such, that tire was almost flat!

Now, isn't that just wonderous news too?  I'm thinking sheesh, what if the damned tire can't be repaired and I will HAVE to get a new tire then -no putting that off, is there? At this rate, with this, that and other things seem to be deteriorating on my old buggy, I'm gonna have to figure out how to maneuver some funds -maybe will have to look into car title loans nyc before it's all said and done!

As I write this post, Mandy and Ken have gone into town to pick up a "plug repair kit" and will bring Ken's air compressor back to the house with them so he can then, hopefully, fix the tire without causing me to apply for a "small business loan" or some such to keep the poor old Jeep running! The exhaust system is just gonna have to wait a bit longer I think but thankfully, it's not something so drastic and is not causing actual exhaust problems for me -just something that should be repaired in the fairly near future, ya know!

Or so they tell me!