The Things You Own

Sometimes it feels like the things you own actually own you. Years ago I used to want a lot of things, but I was just a kid in school so I couldn’t have a lot of it as I had no income of my own. These days, I just feel like I’m constantly paying dues and it kind of makes me feel like I don’t have much control over my own life. I depend on way too many things. I guess there’s something in life that makes us always want what we can’t have, and we’ll go over our limits to get things we don’t even need.

My car sure does control quite a bit of my life. I pump hundreds of dollars in gas in it every month, it’s really my only way to my job as even Minneapolis’ massive transit system doesn’t reach that far. This past week we had to bend over backwards and jump through quite a few hoops because my car was leaking coolant and therefore wasn’t drivable. Since the water pump is driven by the timing belt on the GM’s Quad Four engine, it’s a lot more difficult and expensive to replace than it typically is. So I had my fingers crossed as we had it looked over at a new garage that had come highly recommended to me.

The garage found that it was a little plastic part between the radiator hose and the water pump which had deteriorated because of the Extended Life Dex-Cool antifreeze. Apparently GM used to highly recommend you put this special antifreeze in your cars, but there’s been so many problems with it that they stopped using it in new cars. I guess It becomes corrosive and eats away at all the parts, which I got to find out the hard way.

So it wasn’t as expensive of a fix since it wasn’t the water pump, but still a little annoying. I was lucky to be referred to my new mechanic. I think most other places around here probably would have just made me replace the water pump even though it wasn’t broken. That’s the trouble, if you slip out even the slightest hint of a thought that it might be the water pump, then they’ll think that they don’t even need to convince you it needs to be replaced and they’ll do it even if it doesn’t need to be done.

I have constantly went in to have something fixed and had mechanics come back acting like a salesman, telling me all kinds of multiple things that need to be fixed that I didn’t even ask them to look at. I once went in to a shop for a quick oil change and they took the wheels off to look at the brakes. I had just had a full brake job done 3-4 months prior, and they claimed it needed to be done all over again. I asked why they even had the wheels off on my car, and they claimed my oil change included a full tire rotation. I then had to ask them to rotate them back to where they were, because the tires on the back were older than the tires on the front and a rotation wouldn’t make any sense. Then they told me they had realized that and had already put them back in their original positions. What a bunch of liars.

They pointed out a few other problems, and they seriously weren’t going to let me leave with my car unless I let them fix it. They claimed that I had to pay $3200 in repairs before the car was safe enough to drive. I told them to either give me the keys or have the cops come and impound it. They gave me the keys and I went and had it fixed somewhere else, the other place (a dealership in my hometown in North Dakota) didn’t even mention any of the “obvious problems” the small chain shop had. The kind of “scare people into fixing things” sales tactics that some chain mechanic shops use should be illegal. It’s just completely wrong and it sickens me wondering how many people they rip-off every day.

I think this independent place I was referred to will be a lot better, I felt a lot more comfortable with this place and like that they fixed the one thing that was actually wrong, and not a bunch of other things in order to make extra cash off of me.

I’m learning that one of the most valuable things to have in order to get by fairly is to know people. Everything is all about networking and connections. If you don’t know anyone, then there’s no one out there to look out for you, and you’re going to keep going to the wrong places and getting cheated. Unfortunately, networking has always been one of my weaknesses, I often find myself having difficulty putting my thoughts into a social context, and I have a little bit of a social anxiety problem that used to be much worse, but I’ve gotten a little better, especially after taking some risks and facing things more confidently.

I’m sure I’ll encounter more challenges ahead, I’m learning how to deal with them a lot better. I have more risks I’ll need to be taking very soon, but for once in my life I’m starting to really feel like I’m ready for it.

Talk to you again soon.