I’ve always admired the people I know who are relentless bargain-hunters. Just last week the husband (HB) and I spent a good 5 minutes finding the absolutely cheapest ingredients for our tuna casserole. We must have saved a whole $5. Don’t scoff, that’s $60/hour man! But still small potatoes as compared to some bargain hunters in our respective families. Well, Today is my Day.
This morning HB and I enjoyed the usual morning routine: he wakes up at 5:30, then wakes me approximately 15-20 minutes prior to departure so that I can stagger into my running clothes and find my iPod and mittens. It is essential that an offering of coffee is made at this point. Also, the cat is very diligent in making sure I do not fall back asleep. I get up, feed the cat, and we exit into the dark and misty Seattle morning. Usually, I drive the HB to the hospital and after His Scrubs-ness is thus delivered I go run. We save about $100/month on parking this way.
This morning, as we stepped into the darkness and a moderate rain, I was quickly trying to drain the last of my coffee so that I wouldn’t need to engage the dreaded cup-holder. I was also singing (yes, aloud) my favorite bit of “Imagine” - and just as I got to “you might think that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…” (and yes, I get a bit choked up at that point, OK?) - the gaping hole in our car loomed into sight.
Well, that sucks. Someone had broken out the quarter glass on the driver’s side - the little triangular window favored by thieves for it’s relative ease of breakage and proximity to the door latch. Glass was sprayed over the back seat and the vandal did not even have the decency to rummage around inside the car and discover that there is absolutely nothing of value within, much less anything of value within sight. They didn’t even pop the trunk to stare upon the moldy carpeting within! They just broke the window to break it. And I Just vacuumed and washed that car - yesterday dang it. Oddly, that irritated the HB greatly.
Now, when we lived close to the University, this happened at least 3 times a year. But we’ve since moved to a neighborhood inhabited primarily by people below and above the legal driving age - and we’ve had just about enough of those Senile Delinquents!
We decided to drive the other car. No, not the Volkswagen bus! (All pity points just went right out the window, didn’t they? “Got what they deserve” you’re thinking now, aren’t you - admit it. Well yes, we do have a Volkswagen bus, and it is an investment. In the sense that it is a huge sink for cash. But that is beside the point because as my husband will tell you, the thing doesn’t even run.)
I mean the other car. Without the muffler. The car that is sporting a worn bushing and desperately needs to be aligned. The one that has expired tabs because we can’t afford to replace the muffler yet, and it needs an emissions test before the tabs can be renewed. The car in which the HB got a $100 ticket for expired tabs just last week. So we drove him to work by the usual route (he had to hold my head down to keep my tightening shoulder muscles from popping it right off my neck from the stress of driving that car on the freeway) and then I returned home in stealth mode keeping the keen eye of the impoverished out for the coppers.
Ahhh - the joys of attaining higher education. Together we have completed a combined total of 15 years of college and post-graduate education. And not in the liberal arts either. But, on the bright side, we are used to being poor.
After returning home, I began the phone calls. $210.00, $220.00 (but $45 installed if I provide the glass), $160.00 (poor quality glass), $249.50 + tax, $211.00 + tax, $218.00 (no used in stock), $237.00 + tax. Alas. I then called around at the local auto wrecking yards. I can’t drive too far for the part, so this left about 3 yards. The first has the window, and will charge me only $45 for it, provided I “pull” it myself. From a junk yard, in the rain. Yeah right. $65.00 for them to do it. The second doesn’t have the window. The Third will charge me $50, and it’s already out of the car.
So, if I drive an hour to get the junk window for $50, and I deliver the car to the glass shop and wait while they install it, it will come out to around $100 plus tax. That’s $60 bucks saved and (probably) better glass for 2.5 hours labor (including phone calls). Almost as good as having a job. In fact, if I did have a job, I wouldn’t have time to save us all this money, and we’d probably be losing money on the deal. And other excuses why I don’t want to drive a bus/sling hash/type 40 WPM.
But, I’d better stop singing aloud on my way to the car in the morning, or those little neighborhood punks might come after the windshield.
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