island car

when people ask if i love living here i always say without hesitation, "YES, i love it!"  it's amazing and totally worth it, but it's certainly not easy or everyone would live here.  lately, i have to admit, it's starting to wear on me.  things are starting to lean toward more trouble than it's worth territory and i hate that feeling. 

a few months ago, the starter began having problems in our car.  we learned that you can bang on it with a tire iron and it starts right up, so we did that for awhile instead of spending the money on the car when we have a kitten on the way.  finally, it got to the point where we couldn't count on it starting at any time and colby developed a fear that i'd go into labor and the car wouldn't start, so we bought a starter on st. thomas and had it put in at a shop here.  during that process, we went ahead and bought new spark plugs, a PCV valve, and valve cover gaskets to prevent a small oil leak problem we were having, and we paid a local guy to do that work since it all seemed pretty routine.  this guy has a reputation for being an excellent mechanic as well as a drunk, but our neighbor uses him exclusively and says his work is great so we took a chance.  huge mistake.  he replaced the plugs but left 2 disconnected, unplugged some random tube, and then claimed the PCV was the wrong part -- it wasn't.  fortunately, i only paid him $40 and a can of coke.  colby had to drive the car, shaking violently (the car, not colby), to the shop to fix all that crap and we went ahead and had a new battery installed.  when we picked it up, feeling good and planning to sell it, it developed a random stalling problem which we've simply been dealing with for now.  last night, it started steaming because all the coolant is spraying out under the hood and the engine is overheating.  all of this is in addition to the body work we had done from colby's accident.

i'm taking it to the shop today for another round of work, but it's like... what's next?!  if there's any positive to come out of this, it's that colby and i are learning a lot about cars, but COME ON UNIVERSE, give us a break.  our little kitten is due in just over a month and we need at least a semi-reliable car and a way to afford her diapers without spending hundreds of dollars every week on our stupid suzuki sidekick.  i won't be working for a couple months and although colby will be making more during peak season, there's no room for unexpected large expenses.  can we just please catch a break!