Fall semester: day twenty-five
I have not written a real blog post here in a week, and there are myriad reasons for that -- mostly bad.
For one, the Monte Carlo is probably fucked, or is in the process of fucking. Yes, it's always had its problems, mostly minor ones, but it is now burning through an entire tank of antifreeze/coolant every 200 miles or so. As in, literally burning it off. No smoke, no overheating or anything like that, but it's almost going through coolant faster than gasoline. After consulting with not one, but two mechanics (one of them a very experienced aircraft mechanic who works on a ton of cars as well), we've come to several possible conclusions:
1. The car could have a blown head gasket -- which is, of course, a major problem, but luckily an easily-fixable one as long as nothing else is wrong or has been damaged by it (such as warped heads). As the car is running and driving fine with no noticeable recent loss/gain of power or gas mileage, this is possibly somewhat unlikely, so I can take a bit of solace in that at least. Maybe.
2. The car could have a blown or otherwise worn-out intake manifold gasket, which would also contribute to the variations in gas mileage I've gotten in it over the past few months (anywhere between 18-25mpg) that's letting extra air or water into the coolant system and/or possibly letting coolant burn off in at least one piston of the engine, if not others. I don't know too much about this sort of problem or what it takes to fix, but I've been told to check the oil to see if it looks "milky," as that would let me know that water was getting into the system somehow. I checked the oil and it looks...well, oily. And clean at that -- light tan, and no milky residue I can see. The car's oil was changed about 1,000 miles ago; it's not due for another oil change until it hits 219,500 or so, and right now it's around 217,600 (give or take).
3. Finally, the worst of all three scenarios -- the engine block may be cracked, letting coolant into the pistons to be burned off. I was asked if I'd seen any white smoke coming out of the exhaust when driving, as that's apparently a telltale sign. I have not, seen this, however -- I've seen no smoke come from the car anywhere, exhaust or otherwise, while idling or driving. Yet, somehow, my coolant keeps disappearing, emptying itself, and I have no clue how or why. Logic would dictate that if I had a cracked block the car would, y'know, tell me in some way, whether by not running at all, or by lots of telltale smoke or other problems.
I also would like to add this -- the low coolant light has been on in the Monte Carlo pretty much since I bought it, which for the most part I attribute to a burned out sensor, as it will always be on regardless of how much coolant is in the system. Same thing with the "service engine soon" light flashing at me because of the bad spark plugs it still needs to have replaced. The car doesn't leak, it doesn't smoke, it doesn't run hot, and for all intents and purposes it runs and drives as perfectly fine as it did the day I purchased it. If I hadn't done a routine check under the hood a few weeks ago to see that the coolant reserve tank was almost completely empty, I wouldn't know anything was wrong. I want to stress this. Yes, the car's old. Yes, it has an engine misfire because of the bad spark plugs and it runs a little rough and loud because of that. But it always has. It has no problem going 90 or faster on the interstate (believe me), and all controls/gears/gauges are incredibly responsive and have been working normally.
So, truthfully, I don't know what the fuck's wrong with it. I just know that I'm so not driving it any more than I have to or making any extraneous trips until I can get it looked at and/or worked on. I, of course, cannot avoid driving it to school and back three days a week regardless of what's wrong with it. I have no choice there, especially if I want to keep my job as a GTA and pass my classes. I am forced to take the chance that it may blow up while doing this, especially if it's a major problem, but I really have no choice in the matter.
Anyway, one of the two aforementioned mechanics is the husband of one of my colleagues within the department, and is more than willing to work with his friend, the aircraft mechanic, together on my car to see what's wrong with it to see if they can fix it as cheaply as possible. I mentioned this briefly here in the blog a month or so ago, back when the car's biggest "problems" were the spark plugs and a burned-out high beam headlight he was willing to fix for me. Unfortunately, I have had neither the time nor the money to order the replacement spark plugs or any other small parts the car may need (I do already have the high beam bulb, though). I have to report back to him with what I know, and we'll all have to set up a time that the car can be examined -- and soon. As soon as possible, hopefully. Until then, I'll not be driving anywhere that I don't absolutely have to, and will be attempting to baby the car as much as possible until it can be worked on and/or completely fixed. It could be something simple, or it could be something incredibly awful. Until I know for sure, I'm not taking any unnecessary risks.
Some of you are probably asking, "Why don't you just take it to a shop, Brandon?" The answer to that question should be fairly obvious -- I have no spare money. We only get paid every two weeks, and as we are at the end of the month, I have a ton of monetary responsibilities to take care of like rent and bills, and this month I had the added bonus of (quite ironically) needing to renew the Monte Carlo's registration/pay taxes on it for another year, which was about $70 extra that I normally wouldn't spend simply to get a little green sticker for my license plate. Needless to say, my finances are in the shitter right now, until I can build up a few more paychecks and actually save some of the money from them. I've had a lot of monetary obligations this past month, from rent, gas, and food, to bills and the $750 check I had to write the former girlfriend for repayment of the deposit she signed over to my name -- a check I desperately need her to deposit or cash soon so that my bank account can balance itself and be an accurate representation of how much money I have at my disposal. If I didn't keep my own accurate bank ledger, I'd have no clue what I have. With October's rent due in another week, let's just say I'm glad I subsist these days mostly on chicken, carrots, celery, cigarettes, and coffee. I call it The Five C's. It seems to work well enough for me. I've been visibly losing weight.
My finances are so destitute that I can't afford minutes for my phone, either, which is awful as I'm down to about ten minutes remaining on my account. As most of you know, for five years now I've not had a landline phone, but I've had a prepaid cell phone through T-Mobile, and everything I do on it costs money -- calls, outgoing or incoming, are ten cents a minute. Texts, both outgoing or incoming, cost about the same amount. $50 will put 500 minutes on my phone, give or take after taxes and the like (yes, there are taxes involved now, it's a mess). Do I have $50 to put on my phone? Hell no. $50 is 2-3 weeks' worth of groceries/food for me and the cats, extraneous stuff (like dishsoap, antifreeze, laundry detergent and cigarettes) excluded, of course. One of my closest, longtime friends called me a few days ago out of the blue, and because I have virtually no minutes left, I've been unable to call her back.
I received a letter in the mail a few days ago from Capital One, who I'd applied for a credit card through a few weeks ago. Despite being told I had been pre-approved and cleared for their cards on my original application information, the letter said that while I had a decent credit score (674, apparently...yay?), I do not have enough of an income per year for them to issue me a card, and that my application for one had been denied.
My reaction, obviously? Well yeah, if I had money, I wouldn't *need* a credit card. The whole point of having a credit card is to have the ability to buy things that you can't afford all at once and pay them off in installments.
Such as an engine for a 1996 Monte Carlo Z34, for example.
Or another car altogether.
As I've said before, sometimes you have to laugh if only to keep from crying.
This week has been incredibly busy for me, more than any other week this semester thus far. Yesterday, for example, I was wall-to-wall busy from the moment I started teaching to the moment I finally left campus. Teaching, practicum meeting, an hour in the campus Writing Center, a meeting of the head editorial staff for the school's literary journal, office hours (during which I worked with a student for at least an hour), reading, creating two handouts for class, more reading, then my 7:05PM class. Thankfully, that class let out an hour or so early, which was a welcome reprieve. I then had to deal with the car more, putting more coolant into it and checking the oil for that milky residue, before driving back to Newton, getting essential groceries at Walmart on the way home (so that I didn't have to make an extraneous trip in it this weekend) before finally, finally coming back to my empty house and waiting kitties.
Yeah, that was just one day. One. Day. The other days weren't much better or easier. Most of them were spent critiquing papers or poems, and reading lots and lots of text both on paper and online, and the next three weeks look to be much of the same -- I have at least two big papers coming up to write, and several long novels to read for my classes. I'm also collecting my students' first big papers next week, so I will have those to grade through as well when I have the time, I have to work an hour at the EGSA book sale on Tuesday afternoon, I have to take care of a lot of stuff as an editor for the school's literary journal, and of course there's the looming issues with my car I must still deal with. This sort of workload every week looks to be what the rest of my semester will consist of through December. Today is the first day of actual relaxation I've had in the past week -- and it's more forced relaxation than anything else, as it's not like I don't have a very long list of things to do over the weekend. I'm forcing myself to take a break, to not do anything relating to work or school, and forcing myself not to worry about the car right now (as at least it's running/driving as per the usual, and for the moment still gets me from A to B).
There are some good things going on, however -- very few, but some. I've been in a great mood over the past several days, I've been getting to know the new recruits a bit better (during what little time I have to do so, of course) and my students are not only enjoying my class, but most of them are excelling in it. I have friends who genuinely care about me and love me, and my cats are some of the best companions in the world; they're so vocal, so social, so animated. I have to be able to realize that there are good things in my life, and be able to be thankful and grateful for those good things, to balance out the bad or depressing stuff. Yes, I still have my lonely and/or depressing days, but things could definitely be much, much worse. It's all about having a little bit of perspective and clarity.
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