Interesting. Veddy Interesting!

Remember Arte Johnson from the old Laugh-In show and I believe it was Gilda Radner who played opposite him as the old man and the little old lady? Inevitably, their conversations ended with the lines by Johnson of "Interesting. Veddy interesting."

And that is sort of how I would describe the events of my day today!

When I was back-tracking my last couple of days in my post earlier today, I believe I mentioned about some car problems I'm having right now. Mandy took my jeep to a friend's home -said friend who is a pretty decent auto mechanic -and he checked things over and gave a diagnosis. First off, with respect to the tire that has been deflating of late -he changed the tire but informed Mandy to tell me to go on a "Search and Destroy" mission to locate a new tire rim! Okay, I'll get right on that and start combing the junk yards, I guess.

Then he said the Jeep needs a new battery as well as a new (or possibly a rebuilt one would work) starter. He said something is pulling on the juice from the battery and it's his opinion that it's the starter, going bad. So, I made some phone calls, got information on a starter and ordered that. It will be delivered to the parts place overnite so it can be picked up after 7:30 in the morning. Wonderful. Then I called Walmart (ex-brother-in-law said that was the best place around for getting a battery at a decent price) and found out the battery I would need to get for the jeep -well there are two available and one costs $99 and change whereas the other one costs $110. Not so wonderful news on top of the cost of the starter plus labor to have the starter put on too.

Mandy said she will cover the cost of the battery and I figured I can dip into my line of credit  -yet again -and cover the cost that way of the starter and labor. So now, I think I can make it, financially, until this Friday when the September check will arrive! Won't leave room for any extras next month but then again, rarely does my income these days leave room for anything in the "extra" spending department!

So, I followed Mandy to work and ran some errands for her to her bank and such and then, over to Walmart to purchase the battery. The personnel at the Lube and Tire Express at Walmart installed the battery while the kids and I waited in their "showroom." Finally, the attendant came in and rang up my bill. I was really surprised when he gave me the final figure though. With tax, my bill came to $62 and change!

I asked the guy if that was my bill or perhaps it belonged to the family standing adjacent to me, also waiting for work to be completed on their car. The guy said no, that's your bill for the new battery for that jeep out there.

ALRIGHT! I damned near shouted that to the guy! I have no clue how this happened but he said the figure was correct and anyway, the battery I purchased that I'd been told sold for $99 and change, only cost me a total then of $62 and change! Yes, I was a very happy camper for having saved about $40 plus bucks over what I thought I was going to have to pay!

The kids and I got home from the battery installation with just enough time to run in the house, use the bathroom and then, back on the road again to take Maya up to the school where she was to attend the first class tonight for Cheerleader Training for elementary kids -grades 3rd through 6th! We hadn't told her until this evening when I was getting her in the jeep that her Mom was actually signing her up for this activity so when she learned that is where we were going, boy wish you could have seen the happy, very surprised, expression on her face!

As we were getting ready to leave the school, after the session today, this young woman came up to me and started a conversation with me about Mandy, telling me to tell Mandy she was so sorry she couldn't respond to her text messages last night and rattling on and on about that situation of which I had no idea what the heck she was talking about. Actually, I had no clue who this woman was who wanted me to give Mandy this comvoluted message, ya see. Finally, when she slowed down her yacking to me a bit, I asked her then "And who might you be that I can tell Mandy I spoke to you here?"

Imagine my surprise when her answer was the name of Mandy's sometime-to-be ex-husband's ex-wife!  Okay, now I know why you looked somewhat familiar to me! I didn't say that to her but rather said "Gee, you look different every darned time I see you!"  Was that polite enough?

When I told Mandy about that conversation with that woman, she howled laughing and said "Oh, Mom! That is really funny!" Yeah, it was funny alright!

Then, Mandy informed me that we had another jeep related problem and that was when the mechanic friend of hers was going to be available to do the starter job on the jeep! Seems he is attending some kind of training sessions all this week so wouldn't be available to do anything on the jeep until next week sometime. So Mandy said then that she had phoned another guy who just started his own garage out where his late Dad had run a good garage for many years and asked him about installing the starter. He said if we wanted, we could bring the jeep out tonight and he could have his son start on it in the a.m., first thing. Mandy told him we won't have the starter until about 8 a.m. so she is going to go in town early in the a.m. and pick up the starter, come home and get me and follow me to this guy's garage and drop the jeep off -and bring me back home -and then, when the jeep is ready, she'll run me out there to pick it up and bring it back home, all repaired. And the good news there is that it will only cost me $25 for the labor!

Okay -it's still not quite dirt cheap on my budget but all in all, to get a new battery and a new starter -all installed for around $150 (give or take a buck or ten, here and there) as far as I'm concerned, it's a deal made in heaven for me!

Then, this evening when all had finally settled down and arrangements made for the jeep, I went to check my voicemail on my phone. I've only had the voicemail retrieval system on here now for about a week so I'm not entirely familiar with all the passcodes I have to remember to get into it and surprise,surprise, I screwed up and entered an incorrect passcode into the system and ended up getting myself locked out of my voicemail!

So then I had to call the phone/cable system through which we have our connection and had them work with me to get it all reconnected again.

What should have been an easy fix ended up taking me 3 or 4 calls to the main tech service number and finally, they referred me to the next platform up to get it all operational again! I've never seen so damned many codes, passwords and special code numbers in all my life, I don't believe!

But it's working fine and dandy now -or again -and I'm relieved as all get out now too that the jeep will be fixed for less money than I had anticipated.

I still really do need to find some kind of part-time job though to be able to ward off situations like this from happening over and over to me!

And doing that -finding a nice little parttime job? Well taht definitely would be Veddy, Veddy Interesting, to say the least!