!@#$%

Ok, it's been a while since I posted anything, which really sucks, I know. [tone=sarcasm]Especially since I'm sure you've come to rely on me for the voice of truth. [end tone]

Anyway, my weeks are pretty much a banal existence...just let me tell you that most of the jokes about civil servants (government employees) are well deserved. Most of the time it's like I work with a building full of all the dumb-blonde stereotypes you can imagine. (Hey, don't give me that...I'm blonde too, but I'm an exception that proves the rule.) Of course the people who work around me aren't much worse than the brain-dead people they talk to...just the other day I listened as a worker here repeated "press 9" to an in-duh-vidual on the telephone 7 times before the person on the other end of the phone actually figured out they needed to press 9. What is so hard to comprehend about that? I mean it's not rocket science...and that's a good thing...I mean can you imagine where we'd be? I know that the engineers had a few difficulties converting metric to standard a few launches back, but come on. [tone=insanity] (I think they needed to press 9.) [end tone] It's a wonder that those of us who actually know what we're doing keep coming in...I've worked where I've made a lot of money and not really contributed to society and now the situation is completely reversed...and, just in case you've forgetten let me tell you, contributing to society doesn't pay the bills.

So with such an [tone=sarcasm] enjoyable work environment [end tone] you're probably wondering what could have gotten me so upset to title an entry !@#$%...well, let me tell you. A few days ago my wife's car started acting up (for those of you who don't know, I don't earn enough money to own a car since I started working for the government). So I take the car to an auto parts store where they hook it up to a diagnostic computer and tell me that the O2 sensors are bad. So I plunk down about what you would spend for air-conditioning if you had to live in hell for the summer and get the parts after the man at the auto parts store assures me that this is something I can fix. Now, even though I know what's wrong with it this doesn't really make me all that happy because this Plymouth POS always has something wrong with it.

So I drive this POS home and start looking for the O2 sensor. After about 30 minutes of looking I check out the Internet to see if I can find a diagram or some sort of information that will at least tell me how to narrow down the search. I find a place that tells me it's front and center on the engine. Ok, it's not there. So I look again and finally I find not only a description of where to find it, but a picture too! (Thanks AutoZone!) Of course I never would have found it without this key bit of information, because it turns out it's about two-thirds of the way down on the back of the engine, under the air-cleaner assembly. By the time I find this out, it's way past dark (going on 10:30 PM) so I figure I'll start the next morning.

The next morning, bright and early, I get started...and about 6 hours later I finished (sort of). Now, I'm not sure what sort of engineer designed this engine, but I want whatever he was smoking at the time. I turns out that in order to get to the O2 sensor you have to remove the air-cleaner assembly (Ok, I found that out the night before)...but in order to remove the air-cleaner assembly, you have to remove the head. So, regardless of what the auto parts store clerk said, this really isn't a DIY project, unless you're a mechanic or on some really dank chronic.

So, anyway, it's 6 hours later and I've got one of the two O2 sensors replaced. Luckily for me, the second one is easily accessible in the exhaust pipe. Of course it's been a while since it's been replaced, so it's now rusted into place. I tried for about 30 minutes to break it loose without destroying the exhaust system and finally gave up, taking my hot, stinky, sun-burned butt back inside, figuring that if I got one of them replaced at least my wife would be able to drive the car to a good mechanic who could fix it.

After a nice, cold shower, I drove the car to the store and back and, even though it didn't run great, it ran OK, so I told my wife that she would be able to drive it to the mechanic without getting rammed by an angry driver. Since she had a meeting that night, and we had friends over, she asked if she could drive the car to make sure it was going to be OK. I thought that would be a good idea so I said "sure." When she came home late that night she said the car was still running very rough, like it had before I spent 6 hours struggling with it...[tone=sarcasm] boy, was I glad to hear that. [end tone]

So, by this time I was in a pretty pissy mood...thankfully our company left since it was late and they had about an hour drive, because I would have been acting very poorly as a host at that moment...then we heard the helicopters. They spent the next several hours searching the neighborhood and announcing their intentions to "send in the K9 unit" over the loudspeaker...which of course made it easy to get some sleep so I could go into work the next day.

Then, I drag my now exhausted butt out of bed and make the one click trek to the bus stop, only to find out from a passer-by that traffic was blocked at another stoplight and the bus wouldn't be coming. Of course there were about 20 cops around, all looking at the lovely canal, complete with the remains of the road-rage incident the night before, and chatting...I'm not sure why one of them couldn't have told me "by the way, we've blocked off traffic so you're wasting your time waiting for a bus here," -- that takes what, 2 seconds -- [tone=sarcasm] but I'm sure I'm just thinking that because I'm still giddy from the unimaginable success the day before. [end tone]

So now, I've got to hoof it 2 clicks down the road to another bus stop, quickly, so that I can (hopefully) catch the next bus, because they only run every 30 minutes so I'll have a bit of wait if I miss it. Luckily I caught it (no thanks to the oh-so-helpful police) and then only had to run a 50-yard dash to make the connecting line (that's bus number 2 of 3). After making that connection, I was able to make the 3rd connection without a problem, but of course there's construction outside the building where I'm working that morning so I have to keep my eyes on the traffic as I cross the street and the backhoes as I weave my way through the construction zone. After all that, I was only 30 minutes late...so I guess I should feel thankful...[tone=sarcasm] by the way, did I mention how much I love my job? [end tone]