Okay. So. Last night I ended up almost having a mini-break-down. Well, it wasn't really a break-down, per se. It just sounds more interesting when you put it that way. I've been on this quest recently to rid my car of its sicknesses. Sable used to have a teeny radiator leak, which has since been sutured with some handy-dandy stuff that Wal-Mart carries called QuikSteel. QuikSteel really does get hard, like a rock, but it hardly has a "steel" composition.

Anyway, I also thought that Sable might have had an agreement with Rod The Radiator, April The Air Filter, and Ernie The Eelectrical System to boot-out Calvin The Cooling Fan. While I was fixing the radiator I found out that the cooling fan was not attached on one side. It was sort of hanging there, being held up by some hoses that apparently blocked it from hitting the GROUND. Sable's tricky. She only waits until the perfect time to release her demons.

Well, I rigged Calvin so that it is now secure and in place. I also noticed that after I had replaced the coolant/water mixture in my car, my temperature gauge continued to climb and climb. I had a feeling that the cooling fan or the thermostat was broken, or there was an open circuit some where.

Last night, after I put on my Dickies jump-suit and gathered my trusty tool box (a $14.75 steal from Wal-Mart; gotta love that place), I opened Sable's hood and gazed long and hard as I performed my inspection . . . Just as I suspected. My problem must be here in the "power distribution cap", I said to myself. I popped the cap open, and a sort of heavenly glow emitted. Wait, wait, wait. That's just my blurry contacts.

A nice row of seven fuses lay before me. I decided that every fuse had to be pried from its designated section. I examined six out of seven very carefully. Maybe this last one is blown. I had no idea why it would be. It was a fuse for the IGNITION and I'm able to start my car just fine. Alas, you can't be too certain. This fuse must be the one out of commission. I grabbed both sides of the fuse and wiggled a bit.

Oh, it's a little wedged. I gave it a pull . . . nothing. I wiggled stronger the second time, gripping the sides with twice the strength. Come on out you little bitch. I tend to talk to myself when I'm doing such merry tasks. I felt it give way. Almost there! . . . SNAP!! The pressure I was using on the fuse was being exerted so much that I actually did get it out of its socket, BUT my fingers slipped OFF the fuse itself and collided with each other, making a SNAP sound. The only acknowledgment the fuse gave was a tink, tink, tink, tink sound as it traveled through the engine. BULL-POO!

After making a very noisy journey, the green fuse made its stop in the most unreachable crevice imaginable. Of course the power distributor cap was blocking any hand/finger access. I actually don't know how I was able to find that small p-o-s in all the 100,000 cracks it could have rested. I know. I'll remove the power distributor cap and then I'll be able to reach it with my hand. That was a good idea . . . at first. I realized, after I unscrewed the bolts that held the power distributor cap up, that it was attached to other cables that were too short to allow it to move from its position, regardless if it was bolted to the car or not.

A layman would have said, "Hey, just remove the cables so you can get the box out of the way." Of course I had thought about this. Well, had these cables not been attached to the BATTERY and had the fuses in this box not controlled the hood light that I needed to see into the engine (it was 12 midnight), I might have tried that option. Instead it was better that I stood helpless. I attempted a few rescue missions with a screwdriver and a squished hand, but all failed. By this time, the heat of the engine and my over-exerted efforts were making the sweat glands in my forehead leak.

I can't quit yet, I said, It's time for extreme measures! I need a long, skinny . . . SOMETHING! I truthfully don't keep any sort of long, skinny things in my house, and apparently neither do my roommates. This is where my "make-shifting" skills came in handy. I opened my closet and scoured through the junk. Then my lightbulb went off. Wire hanger!! I have to have one some where. There were NONE. I'm a plastic-hanger-man. That would have to do. I used some scissors my mother gave me (they cut through pennies, if you were wondering) and I cut out the longest part of the plastic hanger. To the Sable!

I ran like a knight in that Monty Python movie. When I got there I inserted the long, skinny thing I was able to construct into the barely reachable crevice and . . . VOILA! In all of three seconds, the lodged fuse, with its angry metal teeth sticking out the bottom, had been removed and dropped on to the asphalt. I WIN!! All of my troubles for no reason. I'm going to put this demolished hanger in my trunk, just in case I happen to need another long, skinny thing for any multitude of reasons.

Needless to say, my car fan is now working. This means the thermostat is working, BUT the air conditioner just recently decided to start malfunctioning. Maybe it's low on Freon or the compressor (any of the like EIGHT parts) is not working. I don't know. It likes to go on and off whenever it feels like it, and that's a little frustrating when you really want it to work. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon. Seriously guys. When am I going to become a mechanic?