When Life gives you Lemons

I buy them on the car lot.  If there is a gene that men have that make them good at selecting vehicles, it is missing in me.  I have a long history of buying cars that end up being money pits. Let’s review…

First car: (Jr. year of high school – 1988)’78 Ford Pinto station wagon.  My dad still says I bought it because it had a good stereo.  LOL.  I replaced the radiator three times, new transmission, alternator, and one time I was duct-taping a hose in some farmers driveway.

Chevy Malibu – when the transmission went out in the Pinto, I got the Malibu from my dad.  I had it less than six months and had to replace the engine!  Then two weeks later, the clutch went out. I drove it 70 miles back to my dad’s house in 2nd gear.

AMC Eagle – I bought this off a lot.  I thought I did really well.  First time I brought it home… dad said the “ticking” I didn’t think anything of… was rod knock.  Less than a year later, it was seized up in my driveway.  I sold it for scrap to the junkyard for $35.

Then I bought a couple cars from my father-in-law which were good…

Buick Regal – my favorite car ever.
Chevy Celebrity – ugly but ran well.
Buick Century – great car, I had this for a few months and my father-in-law traded me for a Jeep Cherokee.

Jeep Cherokee – my first truck.  I decided at this point I was a truck man. It had some weird engine troubles which cost me several hundred over the three years I drove it. I wrecked this one.  So I bought my wife a Chevy Blazer and started driving her car… a Geo Prism.

I drove the Prism for another year, before I had to have another truck and bought…

Ford Explorer – This was another money pit. New clutch, brake rotors, broken blend door, and some engine gasket got me in almost three grand deep in two years.

Jeep Wrangler – Everybody has the car they always want to own, for me it was a Wrangler.  I had it for a year (until last Saturday).  In that year, I had to replace the clutch and transmission; I snapped off the blinker switch so the wiper washer didn’t work; the blend door was broken (2nd car in a row); and finally, the heat went out and the locking gas cap busted!

Over the weekend, I bought a ‘01 Jeep Grand Cherokee.  It runs well, has moderate mileage, leather interior and power everything… and I even got a decent price!  I thought I did great, until I got in this morning and found out that the heater doesn’t work. (3rd vehicle in a row!) Thankfully the dealership is fixing it today.

Morale of the story: If you need someone to come along when you go car shopping… lose my number.

Bad Advice

So a few weeks ago Jesse was gone and the rest of us were talking about Facebook.  I had mentioned that I really like reconnecting with friends from high school and college…and I do!  It’s fun to find out what people have been doing for the past 20 years, see pictures of their families, relive old memories, etc.

The discussion centered on who you “friend” and who you don’t.  A friend of mine from high school sent me a “friend suggestion”, which is where you suggest to someone that they add a mutual friend. The suggestion was for my high school girlfriend.  We were together for about four years from high school to college.  To say it ended badly would be an understatement, but I was under the impression we had made nice at least to the point where we were still friends.  I had left the request alone for a few weeks at the point of our conversation.  Had she sent me a friend request, I would accept – being the good guy that I am.  But if I sent the request, it would put me out there in an uncomfortable place.  I discussed it with the rest of the show, and Amanda and Chuck said yes send it… intern Ty said not to.

I went with the consensus and sent the friend request.  That was two weeks ago.  Today I was writing something on a different classmate’s wall and saw the ex-girlfriend’s picture in her friend’s column, so I checked the status. She has not accepted my friend request.  So, now I look like a tool.  This especially stinks because as high school sweethearts, we hung out with all the same people.  I should have just gone with my gut (and Ty’s advice) and just deleted it.

The moral of the story… don’t follow Amanda’s advice.