The devil you know

While I was busy, out living my life, my cell phone was plotting to thwart my happiness. Now, I never loved it to begin with; it was my only option when my beloved pink Motorola Razr phone gave out after we had three lovely years together. So, I never loved it, but I…relied on it. Using it several times every day made it about as integral to my daily routine as is my toothbrush.

Therefore, you can imagine my distress when I noticed a crack to the left of the hinge, followed by a piece of it breaking off about a month ago. I beat down the panic and continued to use it, looking the other way whenever I opened it as best I could. Then yesterday, when I opened up my cell phone to answer a text from my son, there was a sickening cracking noise, that turned out to be the right side of said hinge which now also had a distinct fault line.

For me, buying a new cell phone is on the same par as buying a new car. It gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It makes me sweat. I avoid it at all costs. As bad as my cracked phone was, I (after more than two years with it) know how it works. Getting a new phone means a new learning curve…the stuff of nightmares. Plus, with cell phones (as with cars)…the one thing you do already know for sure is this: It’ll cost ya.

Oh, were you hoping that the car charger that went with your prior cell phone, also a Samsung, would work with your new one? Were you excited when the store clerk told you that he would check to see if there was any trade in value on your old–emphasis on old– cell phone? Ha! Get real! Your new cell phone is worse than a new car in terms of losing retail value…before the monetary transaction has been completed you have already lost money.

NOTE: About that learning curve: got a tween or a teen? They will both already know how to use your new phone, even though they have never laid eyes on it before…amazing but true.

Car RIP; thanks VIP

RIP to my car, and thanks to VIP in Arundel for killing it on Monday, when I took it in to have the snow tires put on and for a simple oil change.

I dropped it off in the morning for the service, then got the call from them a couple of hours later that it was ready to pick up. My husband and I finished our errands, then went to get my car.

As we were about to pay, they mentioned that there was a belt that was pretty loose and either needed to be tightened or replaced, and that we should do it sooner rather than later. “Just do it now,” we said,  since they already had the car and I had the day off from work.  “Well, I’m not sure if we can just tighten the belt, or if we have to order the part. Hold on for five minutes and we’ll get you the answer.”

We go to the waiting room. We wait ten minutes. He returns with a grim look, saying, “Come with me,” and leads us behind the counter to the garage, where I am now certain, no good news awaits.  My car’s hood is open, guts exposed.

“See this?” the “mechanic”-type person said. “That’s the bolt that was holding the belt on.”  I know enough about cars to have caught the “was” and then I knew we were in trouble. “It snapped in half,” he said. “The bottom line,” the “supervisor”-type person took over, “is that the car is not drivable; you have to get it towed, preferably to the dealer,” he said. “I’m not equipped to deal with this here.”

Funny, I was thinking how my car was drivable ten minutes earlier when I came to get it, and that suddenly, after they “checked the belt”, the bolt was now broken off, and the other end of it was somewhere in the engine (at least, he that was where he thought it was.

Well, to make short a long, sad story, that bolt that mysteriously broke off at VIP and probably cost about two bucks, was (according to Toyota, who called us 21 hours after they received the car) going to cost almost two thousand bucks (not to mention at least three days) to fix. Putting that much money into a car with almost 120,000 miles on it was not an attractive proposition. In other words: Hel-lo, deal-breaker.

Also, heads up to any new car buyers: of course it always pays to do your homework, but especially “nowadays”. We were offered a loan of 0.9 to finance the new car that we ended up deciding to buy when the best rate they were actually advertising online (where we checked the deals and printed them off before heading to the dealership) was actually ZERO percent financing.

Go figure. But hey, we got to meet Ira, so it’s all good.