Disappeared News: Bad car-ma over the holiday

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Bad car-ma over the holiday

by Larry Geller

A week or so ago I took my car in for some brake work. The squeak from the right side was an indication that something needed attention. So the squeaky brake got fixed, and the piggy bank is thinner.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, over a holiday weekend, the car decides to squeak again, but much louder. Expletive deleted. Why do cars do that? It’s a holiday! We needed a car on Monday, so off via taxi to the car rental place at the airport (the only Enterprise open over the holiday with a car) to get one. Tuesday I took our squeaking car in bright and early for repair.

What a drag, and an unexpected expense. Well, I got a call mid-day Tuesday. “Come get your car.” “Is it fixed already??” “It was just a bean.”

A bean?? ?? This would even stump the guys at Car Talk. A bean.

I went to get the car and we looked at a diagram of a set of brakes. On one side is a dirt shield, or cover. It is supposed to keep things out. What happened was that one of those sticky pods or beans from the trees got inside and pushed against the inner workings, making a loud noise. When the mechanic took the cover off, he found the bean. That was it. Apparently, this happens in places where the trees drop those kinds of pods in large quantities. They stick to the bottom of your shoes, and they can get into brake parts.

So we returned the rental car last night and went out for some Thai food. We asked for it hot and we got it hot. And then over to Bubbies for ice cream. Needed to have some comfort food (this is what works for us).

At the next table at Bubbies was a person I assumed was a Japanese UH student. He had a cell phone with a rotatable screen that was playing an HD movie in incredible color. Then he rotated and it and it became a phone menu. Pictures of his friends appeared as he scrolled down the list. Who knows what else the thing did. We are so far behind in this country… but nevermind. All thoughts of the bad carma were erased. I just wanted to know where I could find out more about that cellphone.