It must suck to know that your political party thinks you are an abomination. Maybe you’re in the wrong political party, fellas.

As Ladybug and I came in to work this morning, my check engine light came on. Which, of course, caused me to freak out.

The same thing happened while I was headed out to Andrews, NC, and I was nowhere near a gas station that time. It was about 15 miles before I found a place to stop and have it looked at, and man, that was 15 miles of sweating bullets.

You see, when I was 21, I had the check engine light come on in my Chevy Cavalier wagon, and almost immediately, I heard a repeated clicking sound. I was on the way home, so I got the car into the parking lot, and the next day, I drove it down to a mechanic. In total, I drove maybe 4 miles. Cracked engine block. Cost me $1,200. Had I had a lick of sense, which I can assure you that at age 21 I did not, I would have bailed right then and bought a new car. (A year later, I had a transmission problem that would have been $700 to fix. The original purchase price was $2,000. I said screw it, drove it to a Toyota dealership very slowly, since it could no longer go above 25 miles per hour, and got $1,852 on a trade-in towards my Corolla.)

Anyhow, Andrews, March 2004. I pulled into a garage at 6:10 PM, and the mechanic said he would be there all night working on something else. So he hooked the Corolla up to a diagnostic, and 2 minutes later declared that something tripped the O2 sensor and it was nothing to worry about. He turned the light off.

I just got off the phone with Lloyd’s, and they said that based on the March experience, it’s probably the O2 sensor again. I’d have to go in and have someone turn the check engine light off for me, and it’s more than likely that the O2 sensor will cause it to come back on again even when there’s no problem, so I’m probably throwing money away to have that check engine light turned off.

I’m really terribly uneasy about this, but seeing as how UNC owes me some serious ducats, that seems to be the situation for now.

Yikes.

Update: On the way to lunch, the car made funny noises and overheated. So something really is wrong. I dropped it at Lloyd’s. So I may be bugging you for a ride this weekend.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, you owe me $561 for recepits that I turned in to you in April. I want that money, you see, because I went ahead and paid my UNC Diner’s Club card, anticipating that you would be giving me my money any day now. So, with unexpected vet bills, I am now about $700 below where I’d like to be right now. And that $561 would sure help me out. I know you’re busy, and I am sorry to have bothered you.