cars are expensive pets to keep.

So, I took the Aztek into the repair shop this afternoon. It had been acting funny, vibrating oddly at a specific speed, and we wanted to find out what was wrong with it before our next road trip. And, a turn signal light needed to be replaced. Little G and I arrived, talked to the customer service guy, and he said, "It'll need this and this, and this.." and wow! it would be under a hundred dollars (the Aztek's repairs are usually in the hundredS range, unfortunately. I don't know if it's all Azteks, or if we're just really rough on ours.)
The Little Girl and I went inside to the waiting room, to look at the fishies and watch TV. That was fun, she entertained the other customers just by being a cute little girl. She recieved two seperate comments of "What a good little girl!"
When I heard my name paged over the speakers, I knew it couldn't be good. When they can fix your car right away, they page you to go pay for it. It's only when there are New, Amazing, and Expensive problems that they call you to discuss it again. And yes, it was. Expensive, at least.
Did you know tires can break? I had never thought of it before, but, it made sense...the inner belts on 3 out of 4 of my tires were broken. That's what was causing the vibration. Thank goodness I hadn't had a blow-out with them. They didn't have a tire in stock to fit the Aztek, either, so they had to order it. And, the oil pan was leaking "badly", so I said to repair that too. The very nice customer service guy said that it wouldn't be done today, so they gave me and the Little Girl a ride home, and said they could come pick us up tomorrow. When it will hopefully be done. Hopefully EARLY, so that we can make it to swimming lessons...
So, I'm not going to make it to Panera's tonight for knitting. No car. Maybe I'll lock myself in the bedroom for an hour and insist that I'm going to knit by myself! LOL! and it five minutes there would be little people pounding on the door insisting they need mommy's help.
Big J keeps threatening to buy me a new car. I don't want to, I love my aztek, and I haven't seen anything I like that's big enough to cart our family (and the dog) around, but, when the yearly repair bills is larger than car payments, maybe he has a point.