Hurl was right

You're born, then you die. Somewhere in between you do stuff. If you live in America, you need some way to get to this stuff. It's a big country after all, and to see it in one lifetime, you need something faster than hoofing.

I bet you 95% of us outside of New York City choose cars. It's easy to hate them because all the problems they bring to the world: wars, famine, poverty. Yup, all three of things go on in my head when I think about cars.

Five years ago I got my first full-time job that payed enough for me to move out of my parent's house. A year later, I bought my first completely new car. Up until that point I had at least six cars that I could call my own. However, they always commited suicide, probably because they didn't want to live with me. I treated them dirt poor, never taking care of them or cleaning them, and I can count the number of times I changed the oil on all six cars with one hand. It never took them long to refuse to move from the driveway of my parents' house, and every last one of them had to be towed away.

Stupid as I was, I always blamed their demise on the fact that they weren't new. That may have been the case for one or two of them, but I definitely could have prolonged the lives of the rest of them by simply changing their lubricants and fluids. So with this poor train of thought, I decided if a car was going to last more than a year and half under me, it had to start off with a clean slate. That meant buying a new car.

After a year of working, I decided to buy a Subaru Outback. I dug the way it looked, its large capacity, but most of all, its ability to get through snow. I've been stuck in the snow a few times and I've seen plenty of accidents, and even though I was lucky enough to ne'er be in one, I wanted to limit the possibility as much as possible.

So its got this awesome all wheel drive all-the-time action going on, which is a lot more complicated than the average car. I don't really understand the mechanics of a car, but I do know one thing: complexity begets complexity. With all the whiz-bang things going on down there, there are more parts to go wrong. And recently, wrong it went.

I had a some engine "flaring" when I was on the highway. Flaring is when the engine revs up when you push on the gas, but the car doesn't correspondingly respond. So when I took it to the dealer a few days ago to get the oil changed, I asked them to take a look at the clutch, and by the by, check out why there's a sweet burning smell.

I get a call a few hours later saying that I needed to get my head gasket replaced in my engine. Luckily, it was covered under warranty. The mech then said that I needed to get my clutch replaced. I asked how much, and he responded - in my "by the by" tone - $1800.

WHAT THE F#CK!!!! There goes my Matt Chester Mutiny frame. It's my dream frame that just happens to cost $1800 as well. How ironic -- no -- how shitty. I told the mech to hold off because there was no way I could afford it.

I got on the phone with my bro (who knows a thing or two about cars) and asked how much it typically cost to replace a clutch. At the same time I was furiously typing away an e-mail pleading for info from all my buddies to see if they knew any good mechanics that work on Subaru or Japanese cars.

After telling me that a clutch replacement typically costs $400-500, my brother had the same reaction as me when I told him the estimate for my clutch: "$1800!? WTF?!"

"Same thing I said, bro."

I got a bunch of good responses back from the e-mail, but my buddy Erin's advice turned out to be a godsend. "Just ask your insurance if you're covered."

I call them up, we conference call the mechanic, and after fifteen minutes of talking things out, the GEICO guy says that they'll pay for it. I just have to pay the deductible of $250. Well, daaaaaaaaaaaamn.

My heart jumps back in my chest, and that vision of the melting Mutinyman starts reforming in my head.