google.com, pub-2049694213563730, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 2014 2nd Qtr Mileage & A Hot Tip - myownplace
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6/30/14

2014 2nd Qtr Mileage & A Hot Tip

6/30/2014
Another exciting quarterly mileage report. Actually, they're not really that exciting, but what is exciting about the end of the quarter is dividends. Yes, my friends as we age we look forward to dividends every quarter. That is exciting.  Another exciting event is that DH got a new bicycle this month so we can ride to Busch Gardens!

This mileage business is just a check to let ourselves know how silly it is to keep a vehicle we only drive 298 miles over the course of three months. And the previous three months before that it was only 89 miles. But, boy did we drive it into the ground at the end of last year, putting on the amazing quantity of 727 miles. Anyway, it is going to come in handy this hot sticky summer quarter, because folks we made a critical error this past weekend by ignoring the Law of Unintended Consequences.

You may ask, what the hell? Well, its one of the great things about getting older. As we age, we see things over and over again and you start to understand. Its called wisdom, and we gained some of it this past weekend. One thing you learn is that over and over, when you have the best of intentions this leads to unintended consequences that are exactly the opposite of what good intentioned people want to occur. In summation, "whatever it is that you intend to happen, the exact opposite is likely to occur."

We were running errands past Saturday and DH thought we should bring our Camry to the dealer to have them "top off" and recharge the air conditioning because it wasn't as cold as a new car would be. Well, no kidding. But I thought it was good enough, it was cool after the car warms up, and as little as we drive, I wanted to wait until it completely broke down to the point of no A/C. But I had just gotten a coupon from the dealer for $20 off any parts and service, so we brought it in. A couple hours later we went to pick it up. And this was the problem, the Law of Unintended Consequences had intervened. The exact opposite occurred with our Camry A/C. We intended to make it colder, and now it didn't work at all. That's right folks, record high 96F and we have no A/C in our car. When they diagnosed it, the old evaporator or expansion valve or whatever quit working, so it won't hold any charge. This was a surprise that we didn't really know we signed up for, so we left the vehicle to have it further serviced the next day. Well, it didn't get any better so we called back and demanded our money back. We certainly weren't going to give them our business and have them do the $2000 A/C job they quoted us. The service guy got a little snippy and unprofessional, so we requested a discussion with the manager. Drama! I hate it.

Any way, DH talked to the manager, got the service guy in trouble and our money is being refunded. But, now we have a ten year old car with no A/C, and a sixteen year old truck with weak cool A/C. And you've probably realized I won't get the A/C on the truck checked or diagnosed or charged or whatever you want to call it until the darn unit is already dead, which it isn't yet. So, we have a plan to get the car A/C repaired but you'll have to wait until the next quarterly mileage report to find out how that goes.

Oh, almost forgot the hot tip - remember the Law of Unintended Consequences and consider seriously that the opposite of your desires could be the outcome.


 
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