The Count Down

I’m starting my count down to the New Year. It’s the only thing keeping me going for the rest of this year. Not only am I excited to end this difficult quarter, but I’m happy that the next year will be an even one. I have always loved even years . . .

And this odd year is being nasty right to the biter end. As if I wasn’t miserable enough yesterday, I had to add an IBS attack to my sore throat and headache. I spent most of the time at my niece and nephew’s birthday party in fetal position on the couch with gut wrenching stomach pains. Then on the drive home a huge rock hit the windshield of my precious Mini Cooper and broke it. JUST what I needed – another car issue to have to deal with.

Oh that reminds me that I never shared the VW story. Now this is something I need to document so get ready. You might think the stresses of the holidays and my side business are enough to give me an IBS attack, but the real culprit was our thorn-in-the-side VW. After putting in a new alternator this Fall we decided to keep the car for one more winter season before passing the VW curse on to an unsuspecting bystander. That was a big mistake. A few weeks ago the brakes started to grind so we brought it in for repairs. $603 and one week later we picked the car up. One week after that Karlo nearly ended up in the pond when we pulled out of the garage only to discover that he had no brakes at all. Thank God this didn’t happen on the road.

Needless to say he was mad and called the shop to demand they pick the car up and fix it this time. Luckily we were just about to take off for Florida so there was no rush. We gave the shop a week to rectify the situation. Imagine how happy I was to hear Karlo come home from work on Monday to report that he got the car back from the shop (brought it to work and left it there), it cost an additional $300, and it was not drivable!! I just couldn’t wrap my head around this situation. They did NOT fix the car and he paid 300 MORE dollars? What is wrong with this picture? Hence, the IBS attack. Does anybody have any enemies that we could sucker into a used car that gets 45 miles to the gallon? Brakes are really over-rated if you’re a good driver . . .