Repairing the Struts: The Bitter Taste of Defeat.

After recovering from the previous evening of getting trashed and yelling at the movie Thor, plus the countless drunken reenactions of said movie, we drug ourselves back out to the car with the same motivation and energy as Frodo crawling up mount doom.

Except this time I can't get Sam to carry me.

While waiting for our parts to show from within the ancient and tumultuous world of the Fedex truck, we decided to replace one of our motor mounts. Which went about as well as anything else we have done recently.

Meaning that we had to use the angle grinder to remove a bolt because apparently when they built my car they used grade F bolts. Ha ha. Luckily we had already anticipated this move and bought a replacement bolt, because when life just keeps raining shit on you, you learn to buy an umbrella.

I'm still a little bitter.

So we fight the motor mount out and fight the new one in, and then we give each other the saddest slowest most painful high fives while sarcastically saying go team with dead sounding voices and then I went in to eat a goddamned sandwich.

Which is of course when our new sway control bar links Patrick Swayze bars would arrive. Because sitting down and eating is for losers. So we rip open the package and discover that the bars did not come with nuts like the pictures would have us believe.

Remember the old nuts? The old nuts that we sawed off? The nuts that are laying in three and four pieces in a coffee can in the shed? Those nuts.

What followed was the saddest montage ever, where we went to sheds and got every bin, coffee can, peanut butter jar, and plastic organizer of bolts and nuts and dumped them all out on the kitchen table and proceeded to go through them.*

None of them fit. Not a goddamned one.

We also noticed at this juncture of despair and anger, that these parts looked suspiciously like not the right part. But, we knew these were the generic part, made to fit several different cars so we armed ourselves with the part and some nuts that almost but not quite threaded and marched on up to the car.

We pulled the tire off, assembled our tools, and realized that these were not just the wrong part, that these were totally super not the right part in the history of ever. For one thing, they were about three inches too short. For another, the bolts were not even facing the right way.

At this point I had to talk Scott out of fashioning a working Patrick Swayze bars out of the parts we had. Citing such compelling arguments, as in, it won't work, it's not safe, no really this will not work, and it's getting dark.

So Scott left to call the place we ordered them from. It turns out that they were the right part.

They were just the right part for a MERCEDES.

Which is so far from what my car is, you can't even see it from here. Needless to say they are giving us our money back, because if they didn't I think I would have to get on a plane to whereeverthefuck and murder them in person.

Anyway.

We called every auto parts store ever and found one that had the part. Which we would have picked up that evening except our truck, aka the only fucking vehicle we own that runs, has no headlights to speak of.

Which means that we will be going to the auto parts store bright and early to pick up the bars, and the motherfucking nuts, drive home and finally repair the damn car.

So if anyone needs me, I think I'll be drinking while cursing the cold uncaring universe that drove me to this point.

Pray for me.

Pray for us all.

*I cleaned it afterward, stop looking at me like that. Although that sandwich was damn gritty.