Ma'am, Change Your Air Filter?

The car's fan blew out stenchy air for a while, but then the smell subsided and I went my merry way, thinking I could get the car's oil changed and the car vacuumed out and the state inspection/emissions test done all at once if I went to the Valvoline oil-change place. Their records said I hadn't visited since 2009, and this is because they charge a lot; in my view they overcharge, but you know how it is, you have to do all this, so, like a colonoscopy, you just get it over with, and before long, as I sat in the black linoleum waiting room on a black plastic-upholstered chair reading Missouri Conservationist, comes one of the meticulously clean and barbered well-pressed young men in his Valvoline shirt carrying my cabin air filter. "Miss, this is what we found," he said, and I knew he wasn't lying because about every two years a mechanic (whose face turns green as he does it) pulls an enormous stinky mouse nest complete with cadavers out of the exact same place, and this one at the Valvoline had a dead snake in it, too. He offered to change my air filter at a cost of $39.99. What could I do? Tell him to put it back in there? Most expensive oil change ever at $117. And when I got back in the car I said what, you didn't vacuum it? See, the cabin air filter is accessed behind the glove box, and it's changed by pulling it inward into the car, and rat's nest fuzzy shreds had sifted all over the passenger side. He said Valvoline hasn't vacuumed out cars for nine or ten years.

I was desperate because the interior was grubby, I'd already been to two car-vacuum cylinders, fed beaucoup quarters into both of them and neither worked, so I went home and risked my life taking my domestic vacuum cleaner outdoors onto the damp concrete and grass (never do that!) and vacuumed it out myself with the wand, because I had a hot date.

I Got Me New Tars

I bought 4 new tires and I could just cry -- not because of their price, because $97 per tire is not outrageous for these good ones, Bridgestones -- but for how long I rode around on tires so crummy they changed my whole way of driving. It so happened that I thought my mechanics were rotating my tires at every oil change when they weren't, and the mechanic one day said when did you last rotate your tires, and I said, I thought you were doing that (never assume) and he said, come on out to the bay and see the uneven wear on your tires.

I thought, oh, no. He showed me the tire treads and seemed very serious. Does this mean I need new tires? I asked. If you rotate them can I still use them?

He said yes, but you should really get new ones.

Will these kill me? I asked.

No, they won't kill ya. But at high speeds you will feel a vibration.

So without ready money to buy a whole new set* (I'd just paid mucho dinaro to remove from the car a 10-inch dent that went down to the metal) I drove around for six or seven months on the unevenly worn tires, becoming more cautious, creeping across ice and praying, skidding when I braked in rain and in 1/16th of an inch of snow, hydroplaning on the freeway (the weirdest, sickest feeling), and just the other week the car, using momentum, skidded despite my braking out of the lane and right into Highway F where anybody could have been coming.

After fishtailing last week, almost hitting some railings, I told myself: Either you pay $500 deductible for repairs after smashing your car, or you pay $500 for new tires. Which will it be?

Very fortunately I had overpaid quarterly taxes and got a refund. I said to myself: What will you do with this refund? Will you be stupid and buy earrings? (I love earrings; have 4 piercings in each earlobe.)  Well, to pacify my inner Zsa Zsa I bought $40 worth of cheap earrings and earring parts for repair. Then I manned up and bought new tires.

Oh -- how different! I'd been driving fearfully, distrustfully, braking before I had to, taking it very slow around curves, fearing gravel, sand, and salt on the winter roads, worried about driving in rain. True, those tires did not kill me, but I am so relieved they are gone.

*the last time I bought new tires was at the Auto Tire. They put three 16-inch tires on my car and one 15-inch. I thought my one wheel well looked odd, but I didn't know from Adam or how to read tires. Besides, I trusted the professionals. About four months later a man noticed, circled the car and told me. That setup might have killed me. Better believe I bought these new "tars" elsewhere where there's free lifetime tire rotation. It's where the rubber meets the road.

What's the Most Bourgeois Thing You Own?

This question came up in conversation: "What's the most bourgeois thing you own?"

I said, "Let me go on vacation for five days and think about it," and flew off and upon my return nominated among all my bourgeois items, which include a fanny pack, a terracotta garlic keeper, and one Coach handbag, my portable Maytag dishwasher I was not quite bourgeois enough to have disassembled and cleaned at a cost of $85 for a housecall plus $85 per hour, when I thought I could and oughta do it myself.

 I laid all the pieces out exploded-like.

Unskilled and unsmart, I took a plumbing wrench to the plastic screw that holds down the entire wash assembly, and immediately stripped it -- it was soft, like clay! Unable to proceed, with shame I called the Maytag repair place and said, "My Maytag portable dishwasher leaves particles on the dishes and I have very hard water. I think it needs to be cleaned out."

The holy of holies, clean.

"Aww," said the woman who answered the phone, "just buy a bottle of C.L.R. and pour in a cup and run through the cycle three or four times." Without telling her I had stripped the screw, I said I thought I needed more help than that and asked to talk to the repair person, who jeered and tried to put me off by saying it cost $85 just for him to come to the house and C.L.R. was all I needed. That's country service for you.

Caustic C.L.R. (Calcium Lime Rust) did not fix the worsening problem. Every two months or so I watched You Tubes about dishwasher repair. I showed a friend the stripped screw and he managed to undo it, and today I took the whole assembly apart, unscrewing layer by plastic layer, scrubbing their calcium deposits into the slop sink with a toothbrush. The nitty gritty was guck caught in the fine filter at the very bottom. By sheer luck I wiggled its retainer loose and cleaned and reassembled the whole thing, and now it purrs like a kitten.

What will I do with my saved $85? Get a gel manicure and an Internet signal booster.