Glitches

Inspirational song: One Piece at a Time (Johnny Cash)

I'm getting a little tired of mechanical objects that don't work as advertised. Sure, some of these things have been with me a while, and to put it bluntly, they've had the shit beat out of them. In a household like mine, I should probably be amazed that I only have to replace my vacuum cleaners every seven or eight years. I'm looking at buying a new one in the next week, and I'm at least a year past due for it. I don't really want to do the research like I did for the last one. I just want something that works, right out of the box, and I don't want to regret my purchase. Will I be so lucky?

One time in our lives, Mr Smith-Park had a brand new truck, complete with a warranty. He never seemed comfortable with it, and when we had to replace my car, he jumped at the chance to sell it and swap it out with a series of unfortunate used car purchases. I swear he was happier when he had old junkers to complain about and absorb all of his free time to fix. He currently has three vehicles, the youngest of which was still manufactured in the last century. One hasn't driven under its own power since we got it nine years ago, and I kid you not, it had no seats at the time it was humanly steered on roads last. I towed it from storage at a coworker's house to our place in New Mexico with the Mr standing in the Jeep, looking over the top of the windshield (top was off), like he was steering an Egyptian war chariot. He got a tow bar for every move since. The 4Runner (my arch nemesis) is only three years younger than the Jeep, and it mostly runs...badly. The Ram is his workhorse truck, the daily driver that was supposed to be reliable. Yet it has been through three transmissions since we got it, and every time he fixes one thing on it, somethings else catastrophic happens to it. It's currently sitting in a parking lot in Boulder, where he stopped for a coffee on the way back from his mountain, where it decided it didn't need to start up again. After trying to fix it in the bitter cold, he gave up and came home with me, and we have to hope that it doesn't get towed before we can get back to fix it in the daylight.

I'm still trying to get a little temperature boost out of that tank heater we bought for Agnes. It has taken a full day for the gauge to read two degrees higher. So it is helping a little, but that doesn't seem like enough. I am tempted to put a second one on it. That seems more energy efficient than our other option of increasing the wattage in her lamp. We both think that would just waste heat going up where it does her no good. Again, I am astounded how much of an investment it is to take care of a free pet. And people back in the Low Country consider them more pests than pets.