Cars.

I drive a Saturn. I am not always good about the maintenance. For example, I had forgotten that spark plugs need changing, and so wound up with an entire cylinder giving up because the spark plugs were so encrudded. Fortunately this was fixed by changing the plugs. Two years ago, my car's Check Engine Soon light took to coming on at odd times. I ignored it, bringing my car in for an oil change - I assumed that's what it needed. The light did not come on again for a while, but not long after the car suddenly decided that it didn't really need to run. It decided this while it was ostensibly in motion. I got it started again and managed to get it to the nearest Saturn dealership - it conked out three more times, but the last time was at the driveway to the dealership, so I managed to get it turned on and forced it to run the rest of the way to the maintenance bay. The problem was with the electrical system; the alternator needed replacing, as did several other things, and the price wound up coming out to something like eight hundred dollars.

My brain has forged a link between 'Check Engine Soon' and 'very very expensive', and even though I know 'check engine soon' can often mean 'you've got a bit of an oil leak', it still has the power to turn my stomach over. The car started showing that light yesterday when I went to drive home from work. About an hour later, when I got in the car to go to karate, the light did not come on at all. When I drove from the karate place to the gas station an hour after that, there was still no light, and no light came on when I drove home. The light DID come on when I was on the way to my office this morning, about ten or fifteen minutes - more like fifteen, I think - into the drive. It stayed on until I got to the office. When I turned the car off I paused a few seconds, then turned it back on. No light.

The car's running fairly smoothly, but it's due for an oil change. I'm going to take it to a service station Saturday morning and get the change done; I haven't got the cash for any kind of real repairs right now. I have a feeling my tax refund will probably be going towards the car, though, and I don't like that... oh, well, I'll live. *sigh* Sorry. The whole thing has me unaccountably nervous, especially since I set up a vacation account to save for a trip to China yesterday. I fear the Universe has it in for me, and is trying to balance out 'ooooh, happy happy trip foo' with 'your car is going to RUIN YOUR LIFE BWAHAHAHA'. Of course, I need to keep some perspective on this; the Universe does not care about one person, and no God or saint that I know of would smite someone's car, and there is something inherently foolish in worrying about material things anyway... it just bugs me, that's all, and I don't want to have to pay $800 again.

When I move out of my parents' home, I am going to do everything in my power to move someplace where I can rely on mass transit. The freedom that comes of driving a car has a price I'm not sure I'm willing to deal with - an attachment and emotional investment in something that's basically a money hog unworthy of the kind of importance it comes to claim in one's life.

That doesn't make it any easier to avoid worrying about my car right now, though. Oy. I'm going to hope Dad's right and that this has to do with the battery and the deep cold. The last time I had the electrical checked, the alternator had developed a tendency to put out too weak a charge and the guy at the Sears place indicated it might result in premature battery death. Given that I bought what amounted to the bottom of the line battery about a year ago, and I know the alternator's sucking electric like a vampire in a blood bank, and it's FECKING COLD OUTSIDE, I am going to keep an eye on the car and see if the sensor still gives the 'check engine' light after an oil change and a return to temperatures higher than the freezing temperature of water.

And my guardian angel laughs...

for my guardian angel is the Angel of Zen, who has been whapping me over the head with the Stick since yesterday and the first incident with the car. Do not panic about a material thing, says the Angel, and turns off the Check Engine light on the way to karate. Do not let yourself become attached again to that thing, says the Angel, and turns the light on as I drive to work. And do not fear that you will be left without a way to work, because you have forgotten that it is Early Tax Season. Here, take your W-2, and when you go home this evening sit yourself down and do your taxes. You're due a refund. Take it to the service station when it arrives.

We will see how things unfold from here. I know better at this point than to say 'they'll be good' or 'they'll be bad'. Calm down, let them happen, and the waters will go still and clear instead of being made murky by struggle. Whether what happens is bad or good, it'll be easier to deal with from a calm point of view.

(no subject)

I didn't know you could fill out and file your taxes on the web, did you? I've been doing it electronically for several years, so when my office's chief accountant came around today and handed me my W-2's, I went to http://www.taxcut.com to see if I could download Kiplinger's Tax Cut, the software I've been using this whole time. They offered to let me do my taxes on the web without buying the software; it'd be $19.95 to file a federal return, and $9.95 to file a state return, electronically.

Now, it costs around $15 (sometimes more) to file electronically no matter what you do. It's faster than paper filing and you get your notification of 'yes, the Feds accepted the return' or 'no, you made a big boo boo' within a day or two. If you're due for a refund, you get the refund within about two weeks; if you have to pay, you have until April 15 to do so. Not having to purchase the software is, compared to previous years, a bargain. I have no deductions and I have no real investments - retirement plan foo, sure, but that's about it. I've got the Lifetime Learning Credit because I was pursuing a degree last year, but I know how much I spent on tuition/fees/books. The only thing I'm missing is my 1099-INT forms - but those are for accounts that were so often empty that I doubt I made more than $25 or $30 total interest for the year. (Look, when you're paying your grad school tuition out of pocket, no employer assistance no student loan no nothin', you empty the savings account pretty quickly.)

The site's secure, and I've filed like this before, so... I'll be filing my taxes this afternoon. It looks like I'm due a nice refund. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I'm hungry and have this terrible urge to use chopsticks, so I suspect a phone call to Veggie Heaven is in order.

Billboard of the day:

"Resistance Is Futile."

Thus runs the slogan printed next to two grinning nine-year-old (I think) girls with arms full of boxes.

I always knew the Girl Scouts were more than they seemed, but never dreamed they'd be connected to the Borg somehow!


Side note: McDonald's used the same slogan about two years ago, at least on posters in Canada. Talk about being creeped out by globalization.