What did you buy today?

[wolf]

Haven't bought it yet ... but it looks like I'm buying Cylinder #1 (of six).

Tuesday, car was fine.

Wednesday, noticed a wee bit of hesitation occasionally while driving. I'm pretty sensitive to changes in the engine noises.

Thursday, riding really rough, nearly wanting to stall out at idle, problems spinning up the RPMs, ran mostly okay while puttering along.

Then the idiot light came on. The one that's a little picture of the engine, in yellow.

While driving grab owner's manual out of center console, hold it against steering wheel, page through to find ... on steady indicates fault, usually in emissions control system, or possibly means gas cap is loose.

Pull over and check in pouring rain.

Gas cap wasn't loose.

Light stayed on.

Drove onward.

Idiot light starts flashing.

Manual against the steering wheel again, notice second sentence for first time ... if light is flashing indicates more serious problem, could result in fire.

FIRE??

mother fuck.

stopped flashing.

Had very nervous ride to work (not from home, of course, I was about 20 miles away, with lots of turns and traffic lights between here and there. Sat at lights in park revving engine over 1K RPMs to prevent stall.

Limped it home, and then into the mechanic today.

Diagnosis took about 1/2 hour (there wasn't anyone ahead of me), and when the guy came in with the estimate he chatted with me a little about my Kindle ... and I said, "okay, you've distracted me a little and calmed me down ... go for it."

After he was finished his explanation, I replied, "did you just say it will be under $1000? May I hug you?"