Upkeep Leads to Downturn

    I am even deeper into credit card debt after this week. Now that the weather is getting warmer, I took my car in for some upkeep. My brakes were feeling mushy, so I took my car in last week to get them checked. Amazingly, that only cost me twenty bucks for an adjustment. My tape deck died, meaning I can’t use a cassette adapter to play my iPod, and — horrors! — that I might have to listen to the radio. I bought a new car radio last Tuesday, which not only can play CDs and MP3 CDRs but also has a convenient Aux input right on the front. (The Aiwa CDC-X504MP from Best Buy if you must know.) And, most recently (this morning in fact), I took my car into the Saturn dealership to get the AC recharged as well as to get my horn repaired and to check on a “Service Engine Soon” light.
    A couple months ago, my horn went off on its own. This was after I’d driven the car home in the rain for half an hour. Oddly, the horn didn’t go off until some time after I’d parked the car, shut it off, and gone inside. I couldn’t even find where the damned thing was, but luckily a neighbor located it (behind the driver’s side headlight) and cut the wires. Good thing too, since the horn had started to smoke. I was told that water had probably gotten onto the horn’s circuit board, so the horn would need to be replaced. And since the wires had been so ungraciously cut, Saturn needed to replace all its wiring.
    The “Service Engine Soon” light was because my oxygen sensor had burned out. (Coincidentally The Screen Savers did a segment the night before on hardware that can read the error codes on car computers, and an O₂ sensor was the example they kept using.) And my AC was no longer emitting cold air because of a link in the AC line to the condenser. They also suggested several other repairs (replacing my top motor mount, servicing the injectors, flushing the brake fluid), but I concentrated on the three above. This has little to do with any of my usual blog topics, but for the price I paid I should at least be able to get a blog entry out of it! Some Botox injections and maybe some silicone (in the front-end of course) and I could have a whole new trophy car.
    The repairs negated my next paycheck, but they gave me a nice relaxing half-day from work. They also kept me from mentioning the link for the Singing Hot Dog Man. He’s a hot dog vendor at the Detroit Tigers’ Comerica Park, who has the unique characteristic of operatically selling his wares. He’s singlehandedly given the new stadium some personality and the makings of a ballpark tradition; but some naive and stupid killjoys recently complained, and Tiger management has asked him not to sing anymore. Now, some of his supporters have started a website in his defense, to read more about the situation and to post comments. I can just imagine the stuffy bluebloods who must’ve complained. It was probably their first time at a baseball game too. “Shouting? At an athletic event? By gad, this is outrageous!” They also presumably failed to grasp that the Singing Hot Dog Man moves around the stadium; so if he’s too loud or distracting now, he’ll be out of your way in a few minutes, you buncha crybabies. (I thought I had video of him, but I don’t; and it looks like my photos of him were lost in the great hard drive crash of ’03.)