WTF Else Could Have POSSIBLY Gone Wrong?!!!!

Recently, I was *THIS* close to saying "I'm DONE." I know that into every life a little rain must fall, but this week has been ridiculous. Some of it was no big deal, just helping friends, but it really seems like whatever could go wrong this week, DID.

This goes back a few months ago, over the course of a couple weeks. It sorta started with a good friend blowing the transmission in their car on their way to work. It didn't really inconvenience me in any way, but I worry about my friends when they have major problems, even if I don't voice those concerns.

Then, their significant other had a breakdown on the way home one night. Thus begins the real saga.

The car broke down exactly halfway home. The dipshit tow truck driver that picked up the car, instead of towing it 30 miles to Charlottesville where she lived, towed it 30 miles the opposite direction, to a shop specializing in transmissions (?) on Glenside Drive in fucking RICHMOND!!! He told them that the car's owner wanted a diagnostic, which from what I understand, was not asked for.

We went down to try to get the car moved a day or two later. They have the car locked in a shop bay for an $80 diagnostic fee (again, not asked for by the owner). So they had to dish out what little money they had to get the car out of the shop, and then had no money to have it towed.

The whole point of the trip was to try to get the car to move under its own power, but now we pretty much had to, because no money was left to have it towed.

Then a guy from the shop comes out and gives us what-for about working on the car in their lot. I understand their viewpoint, but the shop owner blamed it on a supervisor for the K-Mart store they leased their space from.

Turns out the manager knew nothing about it, and the shop owner couldn't give me a name or telephone number for the invisible man with no name from K-Mart who was chewing his ass for a customer working on their own car in the lot.

So then I finally went off, and it wasn't even my car. I was as calm as I could be, because I really don't like seeing shops take advantage of females just because most don't understand cars, especially when the female happens to be a friend of mine.

Suddenly the owner is as nice as can be, and offers to let me work on the car in their shop bay. Oh, hell, no. You're not holding her car for ransom again, you crook.

I told him exactly this. "Sir, I am going to put the wheel back on this car so it appears operable. It will be locked up. I am driving 55 miles one-way to get a pickup truck and a tow dolly, and this car will be towed out of here today. This car had BETTER be here when I get back, and it had BETTER be untouched, and it had BETTER not be inaccessible, and there had DEFINITELY better not be any additional bills owing in your mind on its release. This is not even my car, and you see I am not happy. Imagine if this WAS my vehicle."

The car was there when we got back, but I was still so mad from the way my friends were treated that I was towing the car at nearly 80, and the poor thing was swaying like a belly dancer on the dolly. It was in no danger of falling off, but damn it, there is no sense in shops treating people this way.

So we get the car back to Charlottesville, and we're pretty sure at this point that the timing belt is the problem. BIG problem with this particular car, 90% of the time results in valve damage.

I spent an afternoon changing the belt and retiming the camshafts (one of which was 180 degrees off, for those who know what I'm talking about -- this was NOT a good sign). Quite a frustrating afternoon, because this car is not designed with easy service in mind.

No dice. It appears that half of the valves in the engine are bent. It will not start, and despite resetting the timing, starting attempts sound no different than when the timing was out. I feel really bad for my friends, because now between a house of three females, none of them have a reliable car to their name between them, and none of them work within walking distance.

So this was not totally a big deal to me in terms of inconvenience, I just donated a little time to help a friend, and stupid people insisted on making things a lot harder than they had to be... but wait, there's more!!!

I upgraded the hard drive in my new(er) laptop this week. On my old one, I ran two external hard drives, one of which held my lyrics and music related files. The other held a mishmash of miscellaneous things. The second one failed without warning. No big deal, I had backups of this one, and so I simply transferred my lyrics and things to the new hard drive, cleared it, then used that drive to relay the miscellanous things, planning to clear it again and reload my lyrics and other related files (which are my life's work).

Well, the new hard drive failed within 24 hours, minutes before I was about to start a backup of those materials. So now, every lyric, rap rhyme, or song I ever wrote that has not been recorded in some form is gone, probably forever. I also lost about 3,500 MP3s......

I did manage to salvage some stuff that was halfway recorded and ready for vocal recording, but this is a total of nine songs, out of over 250 total.

To top it all off, my newer laptop is starting to have issues that were not present with the old one. I'm seriously considering stripping both of them, selling the parts on eBay, and using the money to buy a new one.

Now I know how someone feels when they say "Just Shoot Me".