Tuesday, November 01, 2016

Halloween Horror

Wow, talk about horrific luck. The long Halloween weekend for me was like something straight out of a horror film. Okay, that's a stretch. :) But seriously, talk about bad things happening in threes. It started out on Thursday night. My aircon suddenly stopped working. I first thought that maybe it needed more Freon and I started to get upset because I know that I just had the Freon replaced earlier this year. I tried to get an aircon repair company to look at it on Friday so that it could hopefully get repaired before the long weekend but they didn't have any technicians available. I was only able to get them to check my aircon on Saturday afternoon. When they told me that the compressor was busted and had to be replaced, I was tremendously bummed. First, because I knew I wouldn't have a working aircon over the long weekend and for many more days after that. Second, because a compressor is very expensive. And third, because I knew that I just had my compressor replaced 1-2 years ago.

As if that wasn't enough, on Sunday, I was on my way to do an errand before taking my grandmother to the cemetery later that day instead of on All Saints' Day so I was in a bit of a rush. Since the errand I needed to do was in a part of the city I wasn't too familiar with (and I don't have Waze or GPS), I ended up making a wrong turn. In my efforts to turn back and head towards the right direction, I didn't - I couldn't - see that there was a very high curb right underneath my car. By the time I saw a security guard waving at me to stop, it was too late. The right front tire of my car went up the high curb, dropped straight back to the street, and it burst. Damn! (It had racked in about 40,000 kilometers already so I it was due to be replaced in the next year.) While I know how to replace a flat - I had gotten the jack up underneath properly and I managed to get 5 of the 6 bolts off - clearly, any assistance would have been very welcome, especially since the last bolt was extremely hard to remove. A tour bus driver started helping me and a passing driver quickly lent us his pipe to give us leverage to remove that last bolt. At this point, a gardener also started helping out. By the time we finished replacing the tire, I was dirty and drenched in sweat but thankful that I got the help that I did.

Still on my driving challenges that Sunday, my grandmother and I found out the hard way that a large portion of the population had the same idea as we did and the traffic heading to the cemetery was intense. Even inside the cemetery, it was moving at a snail's pace. To add the stress level, I noticed that my gas was practically empty. I know that fuel consumption is a lot higher when you are driving in first or second gear, so I started worrying that the car would run out of gas. I had to remind myself to remain calm and not panic my grandmother and I started mentally preparing myself for having to go to the nearest gas station to bring fuel back to my car if it ends up stalling. Thankfully, by some sheer miracle, my gas didn't run out. Whew!

To complete the horror trilogy, on Monday, in the middle of my laundry cycle, my washing machine suddenly stopped. I check it out and the letters UE appear on the console (I later found out that they mean unbalanced error). Seeing that the washing and rinsing of my clothes were complete, I decided to try to just dry them. I check my clothes after and they were still as wet as they were before I started the drying cycle. I do it again, but the result was the same. Crap! Now my washing machine was also broken.

After my unexpected car trouble last August, having these unexpected expenses - new compressor for the aircon, new tire, and repairs for my washing machine - just really throws off my savings. I also ended up having a very stressful long weekend instead of being able to get some decent rest. I now have a lot of work to do to get everything sorted out. Hopefully, that's the last of the misfortunes I encounter in the near future.

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