Weird things that break when your car is old

My daily driver is over 20 years old. Obviously as a car gets older and higher in miles you have to replace things like tires, breaks, belts, etc. However, this year I've had three things break that I've never seen before.

First it was the flasher relay. If, like me before this happened, you have no idea what this, don't feel badly. I'll tell you the primary symptom you'll most likely notice: no turn signal indicators- no lights on your dashboard or the clicking sound when you activate them. My brother the mechanic walked me through the troubleshooting steps: Do your flashers work? No. Do your break lights work? Yes. Thus, he narrowed the likely problem down by phone. Since this is quite the safety issue, I had this repaired quickly.

Not long after I got that fixed, my driver side window would no longer roll more than halfway down. This is really more of an inconvenience than an urgent issue, so I drove it like this for a while. Thankfully this vehicle has manual windows, so it was a pretty simple and inexpensive repair. Fun fact- the car is so old the only place my brother could find the window regulator was at a junkyard.

The most recent item happened this week. I got a new battery for this vehicle on Sunday after it conked out last Friday. Tuesday morning I got in it to go to work and nothing happening. No lights when I turned the key, no low battery clicking sound, just nothing. I was really steamed about this. I just bought a brand new battery, and I'm dead in the water again. I got in my other car and headed to work, fuming as I drove. When I got home I got ready to jump the dead vehicle so I could take it to the auto parts store and have both the battery and alternator tested. As I looked at the battery I noticed the positive cable clamp seemed really high, so I pushed it down before I got the jumper cables. As soon as it was back in its normal position I heard a clicking noise. I got into the car and found out that sure enough, that was the problem. When I looked closely at the clamp, this is what I saw:

It's cracked, thus it doesn't hold the cable on tight. This same thing happened to me a couple of other times this week. Frustrating, but easily remedied in the short term. I did some temporary securing of the cable yesterday, and I'll have the clamp replaced eventually.

Driving old cars can save you a lot of money with no payments, cheaper insurance, and inexpensive registration. It also gives you the opportunity to learn about weird things that go can awry.

What a difference a detour makes

Once of the main roads I use to get to and from work is down to 1 lane for about a half mile due to construction. A half mile isn't much, but the backups it causes are horrendous. There is a back way I can use, but of course that is closed entirely for another construction project. Happy happy joy joy. After taking around 20 minutes to move a mile on the way to work week before last, I decided something had to give before my sanity did. There is an alternate route for the back way that is currently closed. I had tried it before and somehow got turned around. I was now desperate enough to try again.

The next morning I set out a few minutes early with my trusty GPS. Lo and behold, I didn't even need it. The detour was very well marked, and the route was great. It goes through a developing industrial park, and there is no traffic. On the way home that day I found an even better route that is now my daily way to work and back. It is so nice to just get in my car and drive. No traffic, just cruising along. An additional bonus is this route has 1 stop sign between me and the interstate. My normal route from that point has 5 stop lights. The new route is slightly longer but much more pleasant. What a difference a detour makes.

Cranberry Muffins

On the weekends I like to have homemade baked goods for breakfast. Since I live by myself, that means I need to make them. Week before last I was thinking about what to make for my upcoming weekend breakfasts. I saw some frozen cranberries in the freezer and thought "cranberry muffins". A bit of Googling led me to this recipe from Ocean Spray. Here is the finished product:

I made the following changes to the recipe:

1. I used an entire bag of cranberries, so more than 2 cups

2. I substituted white whole wheat baking flour instead of all purpose

3. I added Splenda in place of sugar

They are delicious- they have a nice tartness and aren't overly sweet. They also freeze well. I definitely recommend whipping up a batch for your weekend breakfast.

Instant perspective

Yesterday I was talking with a friend who works at one of my former employers. She mentioned that they recently granted long tenured staffers an additional week of vacation. As one of those employees, she now gets 5 weeks of vacation per year. I told her I was jealous. She immediately put things into perspective for me by asking: "Would you rather have 5 weeks vacation or be somewhere else?" I immediately said "Someone else". I'd love to have 5 weeks of vacation, but no way would it be worth working there to get it.

Thinking before speaking: it's a good thing

Today I called our IT helpdesk to report an issue with our network scanning. As soon as I described the issue, the person started bellowing questions to her coworker about the situation. Of course, I wasn't asked to hold or anything. After a very long time, she came back and explained what they thought was causing the problem and that it was impacting everyone at my company. And then the conversation got very blog-worthy, very fast.

IT person (IP): "As soon as we can find someone who really cares, we'll look in it." Pause. "You probably don't like the answer do you?"

Me (M): "That's fine. I'm just going to tell everyone that's exactly what IT said."

If you know me at all, you know I wasn't being sarcastic or making a threat. I was simply stating a fact, like the grass is green and the sky is blue.

IP: (obviously thinking about what she'd said and to whom she said it) "We'll take a look at that. What's your extension?"

M: "XXXX. I bet you'll get a lot of calls about this."

IP: "That's probably what Person Y was trying to call me about. The longer I stay on the line with you, the fewer calls I'll get."

Me: "Goodbye IP" (hangs up)

Yes, ladies and gents, this is my IT department. And yes, I've told many people exactly what she said. Just goes to show you- it's a good idea to think about your words before you let them loose from your mouth.

Right temperature, wrong species

While I was on the phone with our occupational medicine provider today, we got on the subject of the ways people try to pass drug tests. In case you didn't know, using a "clean" person's urine is one way. One of the procedures to guard against that is the temperature of the specimen is checked. If it's less than body temp, there's an issue. The provider told me this epic story, and I had to share. She said "I had one that was the right temperature but the wrong species." The sample was collected, and the temperature was within the acceptable range. However, when the lab analyzed it, they determined the sample wasn't from a human!

Bonus related story: I was telling my HR coworker about this. She said she had a candidate whose drug test was negative, and it also revealed the person was pregnant. The issue- the candidate was male. I had read about things like that happening before, but this was the first time I'd heard a verifiable story.

Reading is fundamental

Dear hiring manager,

Instead of complaining about how much you are paying a 3rd party recruiter to assist you in filling a position, you should have read the contract before you engaged their services. As you should recall, your department was involved in getting their contract approved.

Signed,
HR person who believes reading is fundamental