Boy this has been a lousy week!

Tuesday morning I wasn't feeling well when I woke up; I had a terrible headache. I called in to work and took the morning off as sick time, went back to bed and slept for another couple hours. That helped immensely! I had slept badly the night before, so that may have contributed to the problems in the morning. While I was at home, I called the car dealership to schedule and oil change, tire rotation and anything else that needed to be done, including checking the front and back brakes. Turned out I needed more than just an oil change. It was time for my 60,000 mile check up.

I dropped my car off after work and with a coupon for a free rental at least had a car to drive to work on Wednesday. My verbal estimate was about $700 for the majority of the stuff, plus $300 for my timing belt as a normal replacement at 60k miles. I received a call about 9:30AM from the dealer advising me that both front and back brakes needed to be replaced. The brakes were about $350 each, so that's now $1700 total for my car!

My car was ready when I left work, so I went to the dealer to donate my left arm and leg, a kidney, the shirt off my back, my first born, and set the schedule for how many weekends I would be spinning yarn into gold. Nah, it wasn't that bad, honest! I just forked over this nice little rectangular piece of plastic that they swiped in a machine, handed me the keys and told me to go home. I enjoyed the rental, a Ford Fusion, as I liked the look of the car, but it was ever so nice to be in my own car again.

You think that's the end of my story? Oh no! I get up Thursday morning to go to work, go out to my car, and there's a minor problem. The right front tire is flat. With no idea how my tire went flat, and knowing I only drove maybe 3 miles from the dealership home, and the fact that I know I can't loosen the lugnuts on a tire, I called the dealership and said "HELP!" Bryan, the assistant service manager that I had dealt with the day before sent a couple technicians to put the spare (donut) on my car, then I drove it to the dealer so they could look at the tire. They don't "do" tires there, but he was really curious as to why it went flat, since they had just worked on the car, rotated the tires, put them up to pressure, and balanced them the day before.

There was no nail, screw, or cut in the tire; no reason at all for it to be flat, except for the fact it was the only tire on my car with no cap on the valve. Two possible explanations for the flat: Overnight, someone could have taken the cap off and purposefully let the air out. Or, the cap was missing when it left the dealer, and when they were filling it, a speck of dirt got inside the valve and prevented it from sealing properly, allowing the air to leak out. The tire was taken across the street to Midas, even they couldn't find a leak. To be safe, they replaced the valve stem and re-sealed the inside of the tire.

My tire was back on my car, and I was back home Thursday morning by 10:30AM. Of course, now I've missed another half day of work. My boss was very understanding and put me down for another 1/2 sick day. And fortunately, we are so slow right now, I typically have about 2 hours of work to do each 7 hour workday. How to fill the remaining 5 hours? Spend them at a car dealership! LOL

Is that the end of my story? Nope! Thursday night, I'm on the computer checking emails before watching Supernatural. I wasn't watching Survivor, because it was two hours long and the second hour was during Supernatural. I can catch (I hope) Survivor On Demand, Supernatural I can't. Anyway...while reading my emails, I get one from a friend of mine who works at a company I used to work for. A nice lady who also used to work at that company passed away on Monday from lung cancer. And not just lung cancer, but apparently it spread to her brain and she had 22 tumors, at least that was what I was told tonight. Either way, Gerry Boyle, 63, wife, mother, grandmother, may she rest in peace.

Tonight was the wake, and I met up with some other ex-employees of that company. I think we're all going to get together for an alumni party of some sort next month, a bunch of us ex-Plymouth Tubers.

Other than all that, my week was great! Hope everyone's week was better than mine and MUCH less expensive.