What turned out to be a free recall of my Subaru to replace an airbag turned into an $850 bill!
I took the Subaru to my dealer Tuesday morning for the recall and an oil change and drove home in a loaner, a brand new Subaru Outback.
Later that afternoon, I got the call telling me that my car needed assorted work including a rear brake job. At first I balked at the potential $850 bill, but then I reconsidered since I have driven the car for over a year without any trouble nor maintenance. Also, I am facing a roadtrip to Ohio in two weeks, so I agreed to the work that was suggested.
Meanwhile, I literally drained the swamp on Friday. The west side of my property has a number of springs and the water runs downhill into a culvert that dumps it into a nearby brook. The primary path for the water was clogged with leaves and other debris, so instead of flowing away, a swamp was in the making. So I spent about an hour clearing the path and draining the swamp.
No good deed goes unpunished and I woke up Sunday morning to find my hands and arms blossoming with poison ivy. I applied apple cider vinegar to effectively stop the itching, but it did nothing for the spreading rash. So after I picked up my car at the Subaru dealer yesterday, I drove to the local hospital's walk-in clinic to deal with the poison ivy.
A PA confirmed that I had poison ivy and she prescribed Prednizone and Benadryl. I picked up the meds at my pharmacy, drove home and popped the pills.
About an hour later, I was on my way to Aldi and Stop & Shop to do the weekly grocery shopping, when the Bendryl kicked in and I started feeling very sleepy. As a result, what is normally a 90-minute grocery run took 2-1/2 hours because I was so out of it. Upon returning home, I unloaded the groceries and crashed.
Around 9:30 PM, I decided to turn in. Before going to bed, I went into the room where my radio shack is located to make sure everything was powered down. I could not resist listening to the radio before going to bed and as luck would have, radio conditions were very good (I could hear WJCC on 1700 kHz, which is located in Miami Springs, F-L-A, 1666 miles away!), but I was so exhausted that I shut down the shack and went to bed.
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| (Source: Bluefly) |
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| Alex Newell |