First for the good news: we now have two working cars. I stress the word "working" because we technically are in possession of three cars, one of which is simply keeping the stuff in our garage company.
Due to the increasing frequency of my nursing clinicals and my fast approaching graduation from nursing school, we decided to invest in another car. As it so happened, James's brother had a car that he no longer wanted, so we arranged an elaborate transportation chain involving various people returning from various vacations meeting up and trading off the 15-year-old piece of technological wonder. Surprisingly, it made it to Portland in one piece, and then proceeded to break down literally the next day. According to the mechanic, it would cost over three time what we were paying James's brother to get it back on it's struts, so we opted "no thanks." We're currently awaiting the title so we can milk the carcass for what it's worth and send the proceeds to my brother-in-law and his family.
This still left us with one working car, and we had convinced ourselves that we needed two. So we decided to go the other route, and buy something that didn't qualify as "beater." We reflected on gas prices, our continuing dependence on the petrochemical industry, and our previous positive experience with VW and opted to buy a Beetle TDI. (For those not aware of VW's diesel cars, they get 40-50 mpg, which more than off-sets the higher diesel prices.) So we began our search. After a solid week of pushy dealers, eco-snob private owners, and wonderful bankers (we love our credit union), we came upon the perfect car.
We had come home late-ish on Friday night after driving up to Vancouver to test drive a white TDI with emphysema (or at least, the previous owner probably does, if you know what I mean), when I made my becoming-a-religion check of craigslistings of "TDI beetle" (you know you're obsessive when you type in "T" and the computer fills the rest in for you), and up came MY CAR. It had everything I wanted: leather, seat warmers, CD player, and moon roof, as well as everything James wanted: low miles, manual transmission (automatic transmissions have a tendency to blow up around him), two years newer than anything else we've seen, and within our price range. Of course, by now it was eleven at night, and it's just not cool to call that late, so we went to bed hopeful.
The next morning, Saturday, we woke up and got ready while I deliberated as to how early is "too early" for a craigslist post. I know garage sale patrons will knock on your door at 6am, but I really didn't want to piss this seller off. I also didn't want to miss out on the perfect car out of respect for the seller's sleep. I called at 8:57 and we were at her house by 10am. I shan't drag on the mundane details, but by 2pm, we were the proud owners of a 2004 VW Beetle TDI. I like to name my cars, and still refer to our 99 Jetta affectionately as "Jack," so what did we name the Bug? Why, "Jill," of course.
And in other news . . .
So, our little Hamlet came down with fleas about six months ago, so like good cat-parents, I went to the pet store and bought the $50 three-months supply of flea medication, figuring that I would really only need one month's worth, because Hamlet is a strictly indoor cat and this current bout of fleas must have been a fluke. Well, the medication worked . . . for exactly a month, so we re-treated, and then again another month down the road. Then school got busy and I just grew apathetic and ignored the cat when he started scratching exactly 30 days after the last flea treatment. I was out of treatments and didn't feel like shelling out $50 every three months for an obvious scam in flea-treatment.
I suppose I must have been relating my plight to some acquaintance (I cannot recall who) because I learned somewhere in the last few weeks (did I mention that school had gotten busy again?) that fleas only stay on the animal for long enough to feed, and that they do the ever-important business of procreating elsewhere, like the carpet on our apartment floor or on the cat tree we made for Hamlet about six months ago (six months . . . that sounds familiar . . . note to self: never trust "free carpet" on craigslist).
Anyway, after deciding that the pet store hadn't sold me a scam, I went back to inquire after a systemic solution to our infestation. They directed me to an area completely dedicated to environmental flea-riddance. The helpful salesman recommended a certain brand that was safe for pets and children (I would hope that it would at least be safe for pets, being in a pet store to treat a pet malady), and I proceeded to peruse the list of ingredients. Ingredients: boric acid-98%, other chemicals-2%. Price: $30. Huh. I don't recall investigating further the critical importance of $26 worth of "other chemicals-2%" because I was thinking too hard on how I could buy a box of boric acid (20-Mule Team Borax) four times this product's size at Winco for about $4. Thanks, pet store, I'll be back if my 20 mules fail me.
