The Struts are Done. It is Over.

Today. Sweet Jesus God, today. It started off bright and early when I rolled over in bed and my body started to demand answers. Mainly it wanted to know why I had thought that opening the liquor cabinet and mixing what ever mixers we had with peach brandy was a good idea. It wanted to know why I thought drunkenly eating wheat crackers at 11pm was a super sweet idea. It wanted to know why I hate my fucking liver.

Because car repair, that's why.

Anyway.

We got up, did things, my innards screamed about shit, and then we fired up the truck and drove off to the promised auto parts store clutching the broken sway bar control link Patrick Swayze bar. We get there, and I try not to make eye contact with their display of air fresheners that are really just pictures of half dressed B reel porn stars printed on scented cardboard. The guy behind the counter looks at the part, asks those questions the car people ask that I never have an answer to which is why I got married, taps some shit out on his plastic covered keyboard, and tells us that he doesn't have the part in stock and that whomever said they did on the phone last night was wrong.

Have you guys been on the Internet long enough to have seen one of those images where someone has photoshopped out the background in a picture of themselves into a massive mushroom cloud explosion to signify anger?

That happened. To me. In real life.

At an auto parts store.

I would not have guessed that either.

So we get back in our truck and we drive to the junk yard where Jim Bubba Country Face tells us that no one here drives dem foreign cars and that he is real sorry but maybe we should buy a Subaru or a Chevy or something.

Alright.

So we get in the gas guzzling truck and start looking for additional auto parts stores. In the middle of nowhere. On the way we passed a hardware store and Scott said grimly that if we couldn't find one he was going to make some goddamned motherfucking sway bar control links. I said that if they didn't have it I was going to make them get out every Patrick Swayze bar they had and compare them and buy the ones that looked the closest.

Well as luck would have it we found a store. It had no cars in the parking lot, and it looked like the 70s had called and wanted their building back. We pulled into the parking lot, not even bothering to pretend there were lines on the faded blacktop that constituted the parking lot. (There were none.)

The inside smelled like mold someone had poured bleach on. We approached the counter, clutching our damned sway bar control link like it was some sort of magic wand. A younger bearded guy with a belly and a T shirt that was tight in all the wrong places asked if he could help us. We asked if he any sway bar control links -rear- for our car. Or anything close to it.

Him and Scott spoke for a moment in the ancient and beautiful mechanics language. He typed things into the computer. Then he looked up and told us that he had the parts. At first I didn't even hear him. I had already opened my mouth to tell him to bring us anything that might fit. He whisked himself off into the dusty labyrinthine storeroom. I crossed my fingers. After a moment Scott crossed his too.

I don't know what he thought, coming out of the storeroom to find both of us with our fingers crossed staring at the boxes like they were priceless relics from an ancient world, but he opened one box and held the part up to the part Scott had.

They. Were. The. Exact. Same. Part.

At that point I told him he was my hero.*

I paid for my overpriced (probably) sway bar control whateverthefuckatleastIhaveitnows and got the hell out. We drove home, I tried to pretend I was not hungover, and then we went to install them.

Ha ha.

You know the reason that we had to cut the old ones off? They are lock tight nuts. Meaning when you put them on they will never, ever come off. Also meaning they are a damn bitch to get on. Especially on this part because the whole center piece will just spin along with the bolt like it's a goddamned teacup ride up in my car. Which meant we had to hold the back end of this thing with vice grips. Except of course the vice grips didn't really fit. So Scott took it upon himself to grind a pair into something resembling working.

Which is when the shed floor caught fire.

Apparently one of us had left one of those cheap flimsy disposable blue plastic chemical gloves on the floor, and a spark hit it and BAM. Being me I yelled “THE FLOOR IS ON FIRE” and then Scott did that Russian dance on the glove and everything was okay.

Needless to say, getting the parts on was pretty easy after that.

So, all in all, this job, which according to the repair guide should have taken an hour, at 30 minutes a side, took us four days, cost us two broken deep well impact sockets, a broken allen key, about a third of my liver, Scott's sanity, vice grips, the right side trim off the drivers side, all of the original parts we had to sawzall and it caused a fire.

So, all in all, I'd call this a win.

* I actually said this to him. He laughed.

Replacing Wheel Struts is the Worst Thing Ever.

Or alternatively, replacing the struts in the cold is like that one scene in Star Wars where Luke learns that he has to go to the Dagobah system only I learned that the air compressor scares me because it's kind of a dick. So today we decided that we were going to replace the rear wheel struts on the car. This job was something that we had wanted to began yesterday, but then the auto shop gave us the wrong part and then we had to drive to town to get another one because ha ha ha life. Did I mention the high today was 37?

The high today was 37. Degrees. That was it.

Anyway, so we get the strut out of the box, optimistically, and then we jack up the car and get the tire off and then everything went to hell in a poop basket. Now what you have to understand, is the strut is that part with the giant-ass-holy-motherfuck-that's-huge spring on it. It is connected to the rotor which is the bit that makes the car stop. So the strut connects to the break. That's all you need to know.

Except there was one other piece. One other traitorous low down bitch faced part. And that part is the part I can never remember the name of. Scott told me it was the sway bar control link. I spent the day referring to it as the Patrick Swayze bar.

Because I am adult and no one can tell me to stop acting like a 10 year old.

So the first problem is some other fucking idiot mechanic had placed the bolts into the strut in such a way that we could not remove the strut from the car without taking out the break caliper- also known as that part I never want to touch again after that time we replaced the break pads. After we did that, we discover that the bolt on the Patrick Swayze bar was stuck. Like super really a lot stuck. Like it took 45 minutes, a broken allen key, and two broken sockets before we gave up and sawzalled the piece off.

Which pretty much meant that we were ordering more parts.

Because who doesn't love pouring additional money and time into a project you didn't feel like doing in the first place? Anyway, about that point we discovered that getting the new strut in was god awful.

One person had to lift the strut up, deep into the wheel well, keep everything perfectly lined up, fight the damn break system out of the way, while the second person had to lean way into the trunk and verbally guide the piece into the bolt hole and then bolt it in place. This took two attempts. Oh and clamps that we placed on the spring to allow us to work with it kept hitting the wheel well. Ha ha. Annddd also at this point it started snowing.

Because fuck spring that's why.

Anywho, we got the damn thing in place, lined up and bolted in place up top. Then all we had to do was bolt it at the bottom. Seeing that Scott, who had been doing the bulk of the lifting, was tired enough to turn into the undead at any moment, I sent him inside, saying that I would put the last two bolts in.

Childbirth probably would have been easier.

Also, I pulled an ass muscle.

Okay.

So the problem now was that the break assembly was just sort of hanging there, so to get the bottom bolt in, I had to lift it. This was not so bad, and I was able to slide the bolt in rather painlessly. The only problem now was that I had turned the bottom into a fulcrum point, meaning that the top was still leaning out and down. Which would mean I was going to have to use my 145 pound ass to shove the break rotor up with one hand, while putting the bolt in with the other.

It took everything I had and then some. At one point, I had my right shoulder resting on my right hand, with only the palm on the rotor because I didn't want to put pressure on that rotor plate guard thingy, with my legs doing that thing where you shove them into the ground and push hard so it looks like you are trying to run in place while you are half laying down.

Which is how I pulled that ass muscle.

I remember sitting there, in my half mud, half ice driveway, breathing hard, thinking that I had given this fucking thing everything I had, and I still couldn't do it. Snow flakes, the light fluffy, lazy kind, the kind that zig zag to the ground, were falling around me, catching on my hat and landing soundlessly on my gloves. The sun was slipping behind our ridge, painting the sky with crazy blues and purples and leaving the heavens lit while the earth slipped into cold shadow. My hands were stinging and my feet, even through three socks and insulated boots, were throbbing to the beat of my heart. The wind whipped past making my cheeks sting, bringing me back from that tired fugue to the world where I was facing off against my car, kneeling on a wet soggy board.

And I summoned my anger.

I thought about everything that had ever pissed me off. Every single person that gave fuel to that terrible voice in my head that tells me that I am not good enough. That tells me I am weak and pathetic and stupid and makes fun of me for being afraid of the air compressor.

And I told that voice to go fuck itself. To go fuck itself so hard. And then I shoved that goddamned motherfucking, son of bitch break rotor up and crammed the bolt in place.

Because I am awesome. Then I walked the victory limp pulled ass muscle walk back to the house to tell Scott that I was the queen of the strut assembly.

At least until we have to do the other side.

Fuck.

I am the Champion of the Washing Machine.

We fixed the washer. As we all remember, I had order a direct drive coupler from the Lowe's sight unseen. Meaning that we had not actually looked at the machine to determine what was wrong. Like you do. I had just made a guess based on what the symptoms were. And then I prayed. Well, yesterday we came home to find that the coupler had arrived. Which meant that today we had to install it.

The easiest way to take the washer apart of course being the drag the entire thing out onto the deck.

Did I say easy? First off being in a tiny mobile home hallway means that we couldn't open the door because the washer was in the way. Even if we pushed it up against the wall. The only way we could make this work was to remove the shelf beside the washer and then slide it into the corner. Scott decided that we should also use the hand truck to move it so we wouldn't tear up the shitty vinyl flooring that I hate.*

Of course both the tires on the hand truck were flat because life. So while Scott went to reinflate the tires I cleared off and moved the shelf. I found things on that shelf. Things. I had thought the shelf was mostly cleaning supplies, but I also found two things of spray paint, about six tubes of caulk, lamp oil, paint stripper, a cardboard shoe box filled with tiny bottles of glue, and a mason jar filled with some unidentifiable liquid. Fun. Of course this being a mobile home, I just shoved all of this shit into the closest available room. Which was of course the bedroom. Because when I think sleeping, I think dangerous chemicals.

I didn't realize until I had cleaned off most of the shelf that maybe piling all this shit along both sides of the bed was a bad idea because guess who was sleeping under it.

Yup. The dog.

My solution was to tell him not to eat or lick any of it.

Which is why I can never have children.

Anyway, it was at this point that we realized that if we unhooked the water drain tube thing from the washer it was going to flood the room. Luckily Scott found out that you could remove the tube from the wall, and hook it over the top of the washer. Less lucky was the tube flying off the top of the washer at our first attempt to lift it with the hand truck. So of course we had to drag the washer out onto the deck in super fast motion. Once it was safely outside I ripped two towels out of the cabinet and threw them on the floor and smeared them around. Then I realized the towels were not really that wet. Then I noticed that there was a forth of an inch gap between the wall and floor. Which is where all the water had gone.

Motherfucking great. That won't come back to haunt me at all.

Then we watched the repair video I had found for direct drive washers, assembled the tools and began. It was pretty easy to do, although for me, the whole time I was concerned that the suspiciously together looking direct drive coupler was not in fact the problem. It wasn't until we took the pump off and the shattered plastic pieces that was once the coupling fell into Scott's hands that I realized that I had been right.

I am not sure, but angels may have appeared at that moment.

Putting the new one in and putting the washer back together was surprisingly easy. Most things were held on by clips, not bolts, and it acted like it was designed to be taken apart and put back together. So In no time we had it reassembled, cleaned and ready to go. There was a brief break in which I had to vacuum out the dryer vent since it was RIGHT THERE, and then we put the washer back into place and reconnected it.

It was the moment of truth.

We put the towels we had used to clean the floor in it set the settings and turned it on.

And it made another terrible noise.

You know that feeling where optimism and hope come crashing down around you like panes of glass and the metaphorical shards cut you up? I pretty much had that feeling. Then we had to lean it up to make sure that Scott had reconnected the wiring to the motor. Then we looked at it some more. Then Scott went “oh shit” reached over and turned the water valves back on.

Let's just leave it at I didn't murder him and bury his body in the woods.

Anyway it worked just fine after that.

For once.

*It's right up there with carpet, in flooring that Holly hates with an oddly large amount of passion.

The Happiest Radio Station in the Whole Wide World

I have to explain that I hate the radio. My husband is a news addict. This would be fine, there is nothing wrong with being informed, it's just I don't want to listen to the news all the time. In the car. In the house, streaming live off the net. All the time. It never stops.

The stories are never good either. This is not uplifting. I do not like hearing people who sound emotionless and dead telling me about how the earth opened up and literally swallowed a two month old child while her mother had to claw her way to freedom and nobody knew what happened to the kid until her body was found two days later.*

This is why I think that I should make a Radio News Station, but it will only report on happy things. Things like puppies being saved out of storm drains, and the successful birth of rare and adorable animals at the zoo.

We will have the rainbow report, in which we will report on how many rainbows happened worldwide that day, and also people can call in with unicorn sightings.

If the traffic is bad we won't report it. So there will be a lot of traffic reports at 3:00am. “Every things is all clear here Tom, no accidents to report, all lanes are wide open. It's a perfect night to be on the roads.” Same with the weather. Or alternatively, we will only give weather reports from areas that have nice weather. “It's another bright beautiful day here in Florida Tom, sunny with a high of 75. Another perfect, perfect, day.”

There will be a portion of the show where we read emails sent to us about peoples good luck, their well behaved children, and their obedient, loving pets. We will devote the morning hours to reports of people who have achieved their dreams, such as getting that big raise/job they have been wanting, finally selling a painting, or finishing up construction on their dream homes. For the early morning news, we will only talk about happy stories, like counties signing peace deals, or putting in new hospitals and the like.

I think it will be the best radio station ever.

*This was a actual news story on yesterday. Sink holes are a bitch.

Painting Part 2

Surprisingly the living room wall painting went well. The stripes don't look hideous and I feel comfortable painting the other wall with stripes. I love the look, even though it kinda makes my living room look like a hotel. I get a little surge of pleasure every time I look at that wall.

Which means that I am winning, in your face shitty mobile home walls. WHOO! YEAH!

Ahem. It looks nice, is what I'm saying.

Unfortunately, they worked so well I decided to paint horizontal stripes in my office. This was in retrospect, a bad decision. It wasn't that the stripes look bad, or even that they are crooked or uneven, but that trying to fix the original color with white stripes was never going to work. I had painted the room a really unfortunate bright greenish blue. It matches nothing in that room. I really do not like the color, but it was the only light color I felt I had enough of. So I used it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the stripes, I just wish I could have had a better color scheme.

Also, while vertical stripes are easy to do, horizontal stripes became a nightmare of taping and cursing. Since I was measuring my stripes off the ceiling, I came to the conclusion that the ceiling is not level. Plus, the walls were bowed and warped in odd ways, making the tape look off, even when it was not. I had another nasty surprise, in that when I peeled the painters tape off, some of the original paint would peel off as well. I attributed this to the smooth, almost too smooth walls, since I had damn well sanded the walls before painting. This was easy to fix though, I just used a small paintbrush to repaint the damaged bits, but it was still sort of defeating.

Technically the stripes are great, they are level, even around the room, and the lines are clean. I am really good at painting stripes, and not so good at being rich enough to afford real colors.*

Someday, we will build that goddamn house and I will pay someone to mix paint for me and it will be beautiful.

Now, I just have to paint the other wall in the living room, and Scott doesn't know this yet, but I am going to repaint that god damned kitchen. Possibly while he is on a business trip.

Love you honey.

*Real colors: colors I actually picked out and had mixed. Or alternatively, colors I actually like.