I’m not exactly thrilled about working Halloween. Eggs shall fly at my car and children will dart into the street in full costume, causing me to slam on my brakes while their parents scream at me for being on the road at all. On the bright side, since we haven’t set our clocks back an hour yet, it’ll be lighter (safer!) later, and in my experience, after about 7:30pm, there are no further Halloween pizza orders (probably because everyone’s home munching on candy).

The question becomes, “Whose Car Will I Be Driving?”

I’m at Brooks-Huff HV right now. Monday, I noticed my brakes were grinding when I was, y’know, braking. Particularly disturbing as I just had all my brakes replaced less than a month ago. I’m hoping whatever’s wrong will be easily corrected: an adjustment, a cleaning. Something minor and cheap and quick (although any work should be covered by my warranty). In a “worst case scenario”, where my car can’t be returned to me by 11, Greg’ll swing through and pick me up on his way into work, and I’ll use his car on deliveries.

While it’s been my hope to get my Celica up to 200k before I replace her, lately, I’ve had it in the shop at least once a week, it seems. Not particularly surprising: pizza delivery is hard on a car, and my baby’s pushing one-hundred-and-eighty-thousand miles on her odometer. I’ve been pricing possible replacement vehicles on CarMax (and especially ValuMax). Yet, I’ve got my fingers crossed that maybe this repair, or the next one, will be the one that’s needed before the car runs problem free for another 10,000.

Hey. I can dream.

(And, yes, while I’d love for my next vehicle to be a Jeep Wrangler, I currently need to be more practical: when I do find a job in/around DC, that’ll mean a commute, which means gas mileage is the most important* factor to consider).

*My Celica gets 32 town/37ish highway.

UPDATE: Rear-brakes got an adjustment (a sanding!) and they aren’t grinding any more (plus, it’s like their brand-spankin’-new again, instead of three-week-old-new.)