Superfluous Baloney

About a month ago my car started to sound...well, funny. It was idling kind of rough and struggling a bit to start. The problem only continued to worsen until I was finally forced to address it for fear of being left stranded some where dodgy. Being that I have only lived in this area for about two years or so and that I have never had car issues to speak of previously, I had no utter idea where to take the damn thing. So I inevitably did the safe thing and took it to the dealership. I should have said the safe and COSTLY thing. The rat bastards charged me $100 to perform a diagnostic test to identify the issue to start out with. When they had the results they phoned me to let me know how much the repairs would cost. The customer service whatever guy calls and tells me I need a new distributor cap, rotor, spark plugs and wires. He calls this a "tune up" and says it is going to cost me $380. I told him I wanted to think about it and I would give him a call back in 20 minutes. What I really wanted to do is to find someone that would tell me this guy had lost his marbles. I have a coworker who knows quite a bit about cars and her father is also a mechanic. I asked her what she thought. She shared my sentiments, the dealership apparently hands out crack for their employees to smoke religiously because that amount of money is ludicrous. She said that actually it is a very simple task to do and that really even I could do it. That's right ME. I could lift up the hood and look in there and change the broken business out and everything would be fine. I consider this for a moment and decide that of course I can do it. I can do anything because I am a competent, independent female of the 21st century and we can do anything. If I can vote, own property and have my own checking account, then I can change a distributor something or rather and some plug thingies dammit. Thus I bravely headed into an auto parts store this weekend and purchased everything on my list of necessary parts and tools. I have to admit I was very intimidated by just having to enter the store. However, I felt marginally better when I saw a female working the counter. I headed up to her and produced my list quite confidently. She pulled everything up on the computer and asked me something about platinum and some other metal and of course I said platinum. Platinum is pretty and I love it so much more than gold or silver and it's expensive. If it is the best for jewelery then it should be for spark plugs as well. She then went to the back and gathered everything up, laid it all out on the counter and rang me up. The total was $107. Now that's what I'm talkin' about! $380 my ass. I took my bag of goodies and headed home. Of course upon getting there I had to take a break to wait for the car to cool (it was definitely not because I am a huge procrastinator, especially about things that intimidate the shit out of me). I give it a good thirty minutes or three hours...something like that and head down determinedly to the vehicle with my pink and black screwdriver and socket set in hand. And of course my cell phone in case I need to talk to a male figure to provide moral and testosterone support. It takes me several minutes to get the hood up. I pulled the little lever thing, but then couldn't figure out exactly where the latch bit is to release it completely. Finally it is up and I am looking at the inside of the vehicle with complete fascination and utter confusion. Where the hell is the distributor cap? And more importantly what the hell does it look like? And where do the spark plugs even go? And what's this bit about wires? There are wires everywhere! How do I know which ones I am supposed to jack around with? The phone gets immediately placed to my ear and the boyfriend gets a call. (Oh yes, I suppose I should mention I have one of those now...a boyfriend that is. I'm a little behind on this blog stuff. And I am sure you are wondering why in the hell he isn't there helping me? Because, sadly, he lives 800 miles away. Only I would choose someone who happens to be a mechanical genius, but can't lend a hand due to being geographically challenged. Brilliant.) Ring, ring, ring, ring...wtf! Pick up already! Can't you see I'm having an automobile crisis here? I mean the instructions I downloaded off the internet tell you HOW to take off the distributor cap, but not where the hell it actually IS! He finally answers. He was apparently taking a nap during my traumatic event. Typical man...was sleeping instead of reading my mind. He finally answered and I began asking where everything was supposed to be and he begins firing questions back like, "Do you see the spark plugs?" to which I reply, "What the hell does a spark plug look like?"
"Do you see the wires?"
"I see billions of wires, did you have any particular sort in mind?"
"Have you pulled out the new distributor cap yet?"
"Oh. No."
I pull out the cap and the wires. He then asks,
"Are the wires finished or not?"
"Finished WHAT? Finished eating? Finished telling the box goodbye? What the hell does a finished wire mean?"
You can probably see how this was going...finally I become frustrated (I'm sure he was well beyond frustrated himself at this point) and tell him I am going to call a a male type person with a foreign vehicle to see what they can tell me. I dial almost every male in my address book and can get no one to answer. Hmmph. Bastards. Finally I begin pulling new parts out and then locating the old, dirty version in the engine. I find the distributor cap and follow an old wire to the end, yank a little and lo and behold there is a spark plug underneath. Then came the next challenge. How am I supposed to get to that little sucker to get it off and the new one on? Yes, I have my handy little socket set and even the deep socket set specifically designed for removing spark plugs, but still. That little thing is way down in there and things scratch my skin when I try to get to it. I call the boyfriend back and explain my newest dilemma. He asks if my socket set is metric or standard. I have no clue of course. And does it matter that much? I don't think the car cares. Then he tells me to look for an extension piece in my socket set. I find it and still cannot reach the damn spark plug. I decide to try a different wire and plug. Nope, that one is behind the engine and I can barely reach my hand down there let alone get a socket wrench to it. I get frustrated very quickly at that point and intelligently sum up the situation by proclaiming cars are stupid. I ended up amazingly irritated at my inability to handle this situation on my own. As someone who prides themselves on the fact that they have moved across the country all alone several times with no one to depend on, I was insanely frustrated by my ineptness. If some man can do it, why can't I? I don't take failure well as I rarely attempt anything I think I might fail at. (Yes, I realize the lameness of that philosophy, but that is a discussion for another time.) I have always prided myself on being able to handle my own shit and my inability to resolve this problem made me feel defeated in a way. I had to come to the conclusion that maybe I can't do it all on my own any more. It seemed much easier when I was younger and the extra effort it took to do everything the hardway didn't seem to require so much energy. I am coming to the realization in my 31 long years (heh) that I don't really, deep down inside, want to have to everything on my own anymore. I'm ready to have some people to lean on when life throws me a curve ball, or as in this situation, beaned by the pitcher. In fact, I find it quite annoying to have to decipher and navigate the world alone these days. I still get a bit anxious here and there about relying on others, but lately when it is a choice of stubbornly figuring it out on my own or sucking it up and asking for help, I am beginning to lean more often to the latter of the two.