Double *grrrr*

I am on the phone with my brother this evening, and I was asking him if he ever knew anyone who has ever bought a car using Ebaymotors.  He asked me why? I told him the story of my car drama.  During the conversation, I was sharing with him the little things that frustrated me about my Toyota that I mentioned in my last entry.  Including the fact that I can't open the trunk from the inside of the car.  He stopped me and said that he had never heard of that.  I told him I know and that is one of the reasons why it irked me.  You should be able to open the trunk from the inside.  He said have you looked for the switch inside the glove compartment?  Glove compartment?  Why in God's name would I look for the trunk switch in the glove compartment?  Every car I have owned has had the trunk switch near the gas cap switch on the floor by the drivers side seat.  So, with him on the phone, I went out to my car, with dread in my heart, as my typical M.O. crept into the forefront of my mind and opened up the glove compartment...

I was happy to see, at first, there were no obvious buttons or switches that looked like, or were labeled, "trunk" but I felt around anyway and as my fingers passed over the little black button my head fell down into my chest.  I pressed the button which was answered with a simple "pop" as the trunk opened.  "Son of a..." I exclaim as I hear the first vestiges of what was going to be a full four minutes of laughter out of my brother.  Admittedly, I laughed pretty darn hard myself.  Mostly out of embarrassment as I recalled a very similar story involving me, my lawn mower and it's "primer" button that i didn't know existed.  But also out of sweet relief that I now know something new about my car that will certainly make my life easier when I travel!

Thanks, Chuck, for making my life easier and not making me feel TOO foolish about it!

Grrrrr!

Almost everyone who knows me learns very quickly how I feel about my car.  I love my car.  I have a Toyota Solara convertible.  I love convertibles and I have always had good luck with Toyota's so it was only fitting that my upgrade vehicle would be a Toyota convertible.  It's a Camry so it's got a very nice, large back seat and is more luxurious than the other cars in it's class, but it's not the Audi or the Saab.  No matter, though,  it's a convertible and it's mine.  I have had the car for three years now and have been happy with it. 

However, over the past two weeks i have gone from loving my car to hating my car.  Since I had the car, there have been a few little things that have bothered me, but nothing that i found bothersome enough to dislike the car.  Things like the fact that you can't open the trunk without the key.  There is no trunk opener inside the car so the car not only has to be parked but turned off so you can open the trunk with the button on the key chain.  I didn't find this out until the first time I went to the airport and they made me "pop the trunk".  It was all this drama because the trunk doesn't open from the inside of the car.  Still, not a really big deal and when i travel, i have gotten used to turning off the engine so i can open the trunk.  The other thing is the remote entry key itself.  The button to unlock/lock the doors is positioned in such a way on the remote that when you press it, your other finger triggers the alarm button that is on the back of the remote.  It takes some fancy finger work not to set off the alarm every time i lock/unlock the door.  Again, not bothersome enough to dislike the car.  I just worked around it. 

Then, there is this issue i have with the car pulling to the left after i get over 35 mph.  I have brought the car in 6 times, at least, just for the pulling alone.  They would "fix" it and i would be on my way, only to have the problem return the next day.  I finally stopped bringing it in, but I know that has to be part of the reason i am on my third set of tires.  Still love the car, but getting frustrated...

The last straw has been the convertible top itself.  I had to get a new top 2 days after i bought the car because it was not aligned right.  I would open the top and it would catch and bend before it opened.  They replaced the top and, although most of the time it was working fine, it's been happening more and more lately.  Well last week, the back window on the convertible top fell out.  It literally FELL OUT.  And it happened at the most inopportune time.  The night before i was supposed to fly out for another TDY.  So I had no time to go to the dealership to get it fixed.  I had to take the car to the airport on the interstate with it pulling to the left, stop the car and turn off the engine to "pop the trunk" when i got to the airport, and tape the damn rear window back into the convertible top like i live in a trailer park and pray it didn't rain during the next two weeks that i was going to be out of town.  I put a towel down on the rear seat just in case it rained and leaked.  

I got to my TDY, which happened to be in Orlando, and started looking up how much it was going to cost me to get the window fixed on my car.  That is when i discovered Pandora's Box.  Turns out, these problems are not just mine.  They are common among owners of the Toyota Solara convertible.  The more I researched, the more I began to hate my car.  I have even started looking into the Saab and the Audi (because I can't afford the BMW to be quite honest).  I still love convertibles and I have to say that I haven't had any issues with the engine/drive train/transmission at all.  But the number of things that have been going wrong lately have made me nuts. 

Stupid car.

Funny movie line

It took me a while, but I finally got around to watching the movie Office Space for the first time about 3 months ago.  Now, almost like Napoleon Dynamite, every time it's on, I can't bring myself to turn it off.  One of the funniest lines I have ever heard came from that movie.  It was the scene after the three guys found out that they had made an error in their calculations and they ended up with a lot of money.  They were sitting in their apartment and trying to figure out how to hide the money and one of the guys is looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary and as he's reading the definition the other guy says "I can't believe we are such nerds that we have to look up "money laundering" in the dictionary." 

It just kills me every time I see it.  Of course the scene when they take the copier out into the field and destroy it with a bat to the song "Damn, It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta" is right up there in the top ten for me too.    I guess I just spent too many years as a prairie doggin' cube jockey.  Doesn't take much to make me giggle.