Bad Ass Merit Badge

So. I have a car. An itty bitty little four banger.



Yeah, that's her. One 2001 Mitsubishi Mirage. I call her Mira.

Itty bitty, yanno. You get what I'm saying.

So yesterday, on my birthday (which I forgot to leave a blog post up about, my bad), I went out to my buddy's house to see him and his mom and his friend who just got out of jail. They were all broke, and I had nothing to do all day. All my fun was gonna start after the sun went down, yo.

But I was bored and they were broke, and in Sedalia some ~30 miles down the highway, there was a place that bought scrap metal. Bret, Joe, and Bret's mom Perry all live out on farm land.... With rusted hunks of steel that hadn't moved in over fifteen years.

DING!! Idea!

We spent a couple hours going through a garage that looked like it was going to collapse any minute, a pole barn full of old tractor parts that you needed a tetanus shot just looking at, and cannabalizing a twisted ball of steel that may or may not have been a car half a century ago parked behind the hay shed. And then Perry and I laif the back seats down in Mira and her station wagon, and we loaded up. And then we had to do some shuffling. The station wagon held all the big pieces and my car had all the smaller bits... Which were denser and heavier.

My little car is a trooper, though. Almost 400 pounds of metal in the back end down the highway, struggling to maintain a 60 mph speed, and once we got weighed, unloaded, and paid, didn't bat an eyelash about the ordeal. Nary a mechanical issue.

I got my gas tank filled and nommy Starbucks treats because I'm a spoiled brat, and Perry is taking me to lunch at a little Cajun place in Sedalia Friday. I'm hoping it meets my standards.

Even though I didn't actually DO anything but drive, I had a lot of fun hanging out with good friends. Lots of laughs, lots of fun.

My little car earned her Bad Ass Merit Badge.

Excuse the absence...

Life has been crazy hectic as of late. As soon as we got back from Texas, school started and I had to leap into that feet first. Daniel picked up a stomach bug somewhere along the way, and did I mention I bought a car? Oh yeah.

Today has been spent in a town about 1 to 1.5 hours away, kicking it with Redhead's mom whilst her personal mechanic combed over the car to identify some problems I knew of, and many that I did not know of. Mira (my Mitsubishi Mirage) got to stay the night with Personal Mechanic until the rest of the parts she needs come in tomorrow morning.

The kicker about her getting work done? She needs about $400 worth of new parts. I'm being charged a grand total of $500 for all of it.

I was quite anxious leaving her behind, and felt out of sorts being in the passenger seat instead od the driver's. But tomorrow I will go pick her up and pay the nice man, and she will no longer suck gas and stall. Yay.

Currently: Curled up in bed under a sheet, an afghan, and two big thick comforters, AND still shivering. Legitimately ill. Send soup and fruit juice.

This Thing Really Is More Trouble Than It's Worth

Yes, this is me bitching about the van again.

Found somebody who's willing to buy it, amazingly enough. Even give me $300 for it. Except he wants it with a title.

And the title hasn't come in yet. Sent off for it a month ago. So, yesterday morning, I limped my ass down to the license bureau to find out what the fuck is going on.

Keep in mind, I spent seventy bucks for first month's insurance, plus fifty and some change for tags, title, and license. So I wait in line for half an hour, because they can't ever do ANYTHING fast at the DMV...

"We don't have any record of you registering the vehicle."

Ex-fucking-cuse me? I talked to you A MONTH AGO to get it done, you even admitted to remembering me. And now you have no record of me coming in here? I shelled out money for this, I even have PLATES that YOU gave me, and you have NO record whatsoever of me registering it? Then who the fuck are the plates registered to?

Nobody, apparently.

GOD DAMN IT. AGH. FUCK YOU, DMV. Kiss my fat white ass. Eat a dick and go die.

Christ almighty.

Scarlet Whore'Hara, Pt. Deux

I'm gonna blow this piece of shit up, I swear to god.

Replaced the battery cables. Still stalls occasionally, still lurches. Took it to Autozone and they plugged a computer into it... Both the O2 sensors are bad in it. Those need to be replaced, because if you let them go too long, it'll start to fuck with your gas mileage and clog up your catalytic converter.

Well the gas mileage started to go to shit... Then we tried to drive to Harrisonville this past Saturday. Got halfway there, it stalled out and then... It didn't want to get above twenty miles an hour.

WTF OVER??!

It struggled to get up to 65 as far as we went, so I didn't push it. I just tried to maintain that steady 65.

We got to a gas station that's pretty much the halfway point between our place and Redhead's Mom. Called her, and her and her slightly mechanically-inclined boyfriend came out and had a look. While Mom cooed over Daniel, her boyfriend Rich popped the hood and started the van to have a look and a listen.

There was a very serious knocking noise. We're good on oil, but it's knocking like a motherfucker all the damned time.

"Your lifters are knocking. That could cost up to about $1,300 to fix."

I don't have that kind of money! Not to mention the damned thing isn't worth that much.

Well, for sale signs went up on it the next day, complete with an ad on Craigslist. There's a guy just outside of town that buys cars, fixes them up, and sells them out again. Took it out there today, he looked at it and took it for a spin, came back... The catalytic converter is already clogged up, that's why it can't get any speed.

Those damned O2 sensors started it all. Oh yeah, and I have metal in my oil. It's getting an oil change tomorrow, and also Marcus is gonna come over and we're gonna see what we can do about the catalytic converter.

It probably won't be bought for a while, and my financial aid won't come in til the middle of August...

What are we gonna do til then, though?

Scarlet Whore'Hara

So. I made a post some time ago, shamelessly whoring out promoting Redhead's sister's business. The hemp cloth diapers. Yeah, you guys remember it right? Anybody remember what else I said?

Yeah, I was getting a van in trade for working for her. Well, we got the van about four days before I popped and had the baby. Got it inspected, got some temp tags, got the title, yada yada...

Well, the van, she needs some work. Nothing major, really. Already got the tie rod replaced on it, that was number one on the list of things to get fixed. If you know absolutely ANYTHING about cars, you know that if the tie rod busts, you're pretty much fucked sideways. It's a sitting duck, no matter WHERE you are. When I got it inspected, it passed the inspection, but just barely with that tie rod. My mom came up for a week and while she was here, she paid to have that fixed. She's helping me a lot with the cost of getting it all fixed up, mainly because that's what's going to be carrying her grandson around, and once it's all fixed, I'll be bringing her precious little Punkin Doodle to Texas for a visit this summer. So, yeah, repairs are a major priority for her.

Well, one of the issues the van's been having... We couldn't figure it out. It could have been any number of small issues, and we didn't have the spare cash to pay a mechanic to plug it into a computer and find out what's doing it. Pretty much, it'll start up and drive okay, but when you stop at a light or whatever, the RPMs rev up and down, and it tries to lurch out from under you if you aren't careful. And, you know, it randomly dies. That REALLY sucks, but it always started right back up.

Yeah. That's a problem. And it could be any number of things, like I said. But we did notice that the battery cables were in pretty bad shape, so I went up to AutoZone to buy some. They went out as a precaution (to keep me from spending some 30-odd dollars on cables if it was actually unnecessary) and tested the battery and alternator. Then they noticed that the Check Engine light was on. Plug it into a computer for FREE! Sweet shit on toast.

Only trouble codes that popped up were for the two O2 sensors. Nothing TOO serious, just a couple of $50 parts that I could put in myself. And if it goes without replacing, all it'll really do is affect my gas mileage. Okay then. Call Mom and tell her, she'll send money Tuesday for the parts. Cool.

Well, I went to Walgreens earlier for something or another, and Walgreens didn't have it. Of course. Go figure. Alrighty, get in the van and head to Walmart instead. They usually have everything I need. Put the key in the ignition, turn it, watch the dashboard light up. Go to start it...

Click. No lights.

"Don't you do this to me you fucking whore, it's 90 degrees outside and I can't afford to get you towed home."

Try again. Turn, click. Nothing.

"You piece of shit cock sucking whore of a van..."

Pop the hood, check the cables' connections, try again. Stood there for twenty minutes waiting for Sister to show up and jump me and leave the portable jumper with me, just in case it tried this shit again.

She gets there, hook up the jumper cables, try to start it... still nothing.

"Whore ass cock sucker... You better fucking start, or I swear to the gods I'll fill your gas tank with moth balls and destroy everything you love..."

We ended up getting her started, after much swearing in English and Spanish both, and much fiddling with battery cables in the hot afternoon sun.

I was so glad that I didn't have Daniel with me. I would have most likely had a melt down of the nuclear variety with him out in that heat while trying to get that van started.

A random stranger gave the cables a good yank and power was restored to the vehicle. So I bought battery cables, and now I'm trying to rustle up a friend with some tools to help me get the damned things put in. I don't like it stalling on me in the middle of traffic, nor do I like the lurching.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

Everybody names their vehicles. Well, anybody who has a sense of humor and likes to personalize their car. You get to know the vehicle, you give it an appropriate name.

Redhead and I were calling her Lurch, for the obvious reason. Well, after my mild rage at her behavior in the Walgreens parking lot, I came home to complain to Redhead about it.

Me: "Fucking whore ass bitch of a van... What a whore. And she's red, too. Like a scarlet woman, only a van."

Redhead: "...Scarlet Whore'Hara. Hahahaha..."

And it stuck. So, now she's Scarlet Whore'Hara.

...fucking whore van...