For the past several weeks my car has been making a noise. More precisely, it has been squealing. Whenever I’d drive faster than 20 miles per hour it would make this horrid high pitched squeal that made approximately every person ever stare at me with horror while I drive.

I’m not known for taking especially excellent care of my car. It’s that I don’t care as much as that it’s an inconvenience and expensive and well, I’m lazy. Nevermind that I haven’t washed it in, um, 6 months? but I haven’t had it tuned up pretty much ever.

Now that I’m back to spending several hours a day in my car (though ironically, rarely driving more than 20 mph), I decided I really needed to take it in. Especially since I started to remember the squealing sound from a brake issue I had a few years ago (this issue was that they needed to be replaced). I don’t fool around with brakes. Just oil. And gas. And washing.

So I dropped my car off on Wednesday morning at the Honda dealership nearby, grabbed a rental car (I’m pretty sure it was a Lincoln Landbarge. Seriously, biggest car ever) and drove to school. When I got out of my class at noon I had a message waiting for me from the car place.

“Hi Kathy (sidenote: duuuuude, do NOT call me Kathy), this is Andy at Honda, I just wanted to let you know that I have a report for you on the car. We did find that the front brakes are metal to metal, and it needs rotors, the rotors are undersized. Parts and labor you’re looking at (HUGE dollar number here). Also he said that your front motor mount is broken, you have a power steering reservoir that is seeping fluid and the lower power steering is also seeping fluid, those will cost (MOAR MONEY) to fix. You have one tire that has a nail in it and it’s too close to the sidewall for us to repair and that’ll run you (even more of your measly income). You have a couple of front struts that are leaking and compliance pushings that are torn. Oh and on the lights, there’s nothing simple for us to fix, so we’ll have to go through the wiring and um, it looks like your seatbelt is broken which is why the airbag light is on. If you give me a call I can go over all the other stuff with you.”

OTHER STUFF TOO.

Dude.

Sidenote: I have some really incredible talent to ALWAYS have nails in the sidewalls of my tire, never the tread where it can be patched. I’m going to put in on the special skills section of my resume because I’ve been driving for 11 years and have accomplished this feat like 4 or 5 times. It’s ridiculous.

I ended up calling and asking which things absolutely had to be fixed, and walked away with new brakes, new rotors, a new tire, a reminder to come back to get my seatbelt fixed in 2 weeks when the parts are in, and significantly less money than I started with. And, for the second time in 2 weeks, I didn’t get a car wash because their system was broken. I think that all the washes in the county see my car coming and pre-emptively quit working. Sigh.

Fortunately my car is no longer making noises. But coincidentally, my bank account is now making the exact same noise my car used to make. With breaks for intermittent sobbing.

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