brtchk

i've learned a lot about cars (and life) in the past few days:

• it's really important to check fluid levels in your car. especially when it's 13 years old. oil goes pretty quickly. so does coolant, when there's a hole in the heater hose.

• blame can be a hard thing to determine, especially when your car breaks down less than 24 hours after leaving the shop. sometimes people have tunnel vision. other times they are careless. it can be hard to distinguish between the two.

• chivalry is not dead. if you're stranded long enough, someone will stop to help. and if its your lucky day, he'll even be a mechanic and fix your car the next day for $20.

• all good things will, eventually, come to an end. in particular, the car you've been driving since you were 16. figuring out when to call it quits is often harder to decide.