Mexico Medical Student |

I just got home having spent $450 in auto service. I went to get my shocks changed, which I’ve never done on my 7 year old truck. With the roads here, you can ruin a suspension quickly, and my suspension was already shot before I got here. I was expecting pay a really cheap $180 for everything (using Monroe shocks, not some local or Taiwanese brand), but of course, there were other things wrong from going far too long with a shot suspension. In some of the items, the verbal estimate was multiplied x4, but the quick talk made it seem that it was 1/4 that, so when I got the final estimate before the work was done, I had yet another round of sticker shock. All in all, this is not major auto repair–I know that–but it’s at an inconvenient time at the end of the year where I’ve already had to tap into a credit card to make it to my next student loan disbursement.

One of the motivating factors, aside from preventing catastrophic damage, for fixing everything de una vez was that baby will be riding in the truck at least for the trip home and probably off and on in general (small car will be primary). I can brace myself for a severe bump, but it’s probably not a good idea for baby. So imagine my disappointment when I drove home from the auto place, and I didn’t have the suspension of a Lincoln Town Car like I was expecting. Perhaps my expectations were a little high, but had this overriding feeling of, “WTF did I spend money for?” Yes, there’s a small difference in the small bumps of the road, and the large speed bumps you find everywhere produce one normal bump, not the multiple up-down demonstration of Hooke’s Law I most often experience.

Gotta refocus for pathology tomorrow, then I’m outta here.