"Like Butter" or . . .

Wow, I can stop the car.

My brother is consistantly yelling at me about "drivin' like a grandma". According to him, I need to slam on the brakes more, thus keeping them clean. Something about friction and scraping.

About two years ago, we changed the brakes on the Skunk Neon. When we bought all the stuff at Murray's they gave us the wrong rotors. They only had four holes instead of the five holes required. Mr. Crabbypants was frustrated by that point and said that I didn't need new rotors . . . and then changed the brakes pads. The rotors were to be returned later. Something about doing brakes on a Sunday.

But I really did need new rotors . . . and so the car shuddered to a stop. It made noises. It was wobbly. Had my brother check it (and my father) and was told that the old rotors would eventually grind down . . . like they would get used to the new, alien brake pads. The car did stop and was totally controllable (it didn't affect the steering) but made my passengers slightly nervous. But I don't usually have passengers. And I have two vehicles. So somehow the problem was just not addressed.

So now I have new brakes. And they stop like butter. And I think part of the reason that I drove like a grandma was that I wasn't always sure that the other brakes would stop. So I always gave myself extra space and time. Which, looking at the amount of rust on the old rotors, probably compounded the problem.

So the Skunk Neon stops. Smoothly. It is eight years old and has a 146,000 miles on it. I still love the thing. I still can't sell it . . . and soon I will have to build a garage around my poor little skunk.

Oh, and had to go to several auto parts stores to look for sleeves for my worn caliper arms. They had grooves in them and my father insisted that they made a stainless steel clip to go over the surface. Yeah, the auto parts store men looked at me like I was psychotic . . . probably just because I had entered the store in the first place. The second store had license plates at the register reading "If I had wanted a bitch, I would have bought a dog." Which was very charming and made me feel very welcome. The parts people looked carefully into their books and computers and then told my father that the part he was describing was imaginary. Oh, and I was wearing a fuzzy, pink kitty hat at the time. (might explain the looks too) So we just filed them down, making them all smooth with a Dremel tool. Cool when you get sparks off a Dremel.

And my father muttered again about doing brakes on a Sunday.