babies are expensive

Well, since it seems beyond the realm of possibility to have both our vehicles working at any one time, and since Bertie is holding up ok while we are waiting for his new fuel pump to arrive (the service people said it'd be alright to drive him for the time being, so we brought him home and have been driving him normally - his "check engine" light came on once for a day, but went off again on its own), this week it was Lucy's turn to need service. She is four and a half years old now, and has over 55,000 miles on her. She is due to start needing a lot of major maintenance work soon.

This time, she needed brake work, and her overheating problem which seemed like a coolant leak had returned, much to my alarm. A set of new brake pads and rotors and one new thermostat later, and I am $1410 poorer. Yikes! I gave her a little talking-to after I picked her up from the shop. Her driver's side window is having occasional sticking issues now, too (at least partially due to the dents left in the door by the two or three hit-and-run drivers who hit her while she was parked on our street in Syracuse, I am sure), but that would have been another $500-some dollars to fix, and I really don't have that much to spare right now. I told them to hold off on fixing that, since it's just not an essential repair. The body work I was hoping to have done on her is going to have to be postponed, now, as well. I want her to look all pretty again, but she needs to understand that I am not made of money.

*sigh* Kids these days.