**crunch**

So I'm sitting in my car fiddling with my bag when all of a sudden I hear a crunch, and get jarred over a foot. I whip my head around in time to see and feel a big white POS disentangling it's self from the side of my car.

OK, so I'm a little pissed. I get out of the car and inspect the damage while the other driver finishes parking (badly I might add), and find that the lower part of my rear passenger door is partially caved in and pretty scratched up.

I knew immediately that I wasn't going to file a claim. The $300 dollars or so I would get to fix the door (or buy a Wii, lets be realistic) would be quickly erased by the fact that my insurance would go up by $25 a month.

The other driver finished her inexpert parking and brought out her insurance papers and asked if I wanted to trade info. I said no, and told her that it would just fuck up my insurance,but If she wanted to give me something to help compensate for the damage that would be great. I let her know I wasn't very happy about the side of my car looking like shit, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

She then proceeded to put her info back in the car, gather up the other people in her car and leave. She did not apologize, did not say another word just walked away, glaring at me.

It's not liked I yelled, it's not like I called her any names. I swore a little, and showed that I was unhappy. She just slinked away like a fucking coward. If I wasn't in the car, I'm fairly sure she would have took off with out leaving a note.

Bunch of fucking savages in this town.

The Machine Jihad

Our machines have turned against us.

You all know our tale of major appliance woe from the last couple of months, but now there is more.

It started a few days ago when the lawn mower just up and died. No warning, just stopped. No big deal, we just borrowed the neighbor's for the time being and moved on with our lives.

Today, the car died, and not just the little deaths that cars sometimes have and recover from, but a big scary death with gushing oil, smoke and what is most likely a cracked block. We can not afford to buy a car, but we must have a car. It is a conundrum, to say the least.

We do have temporary transportation for a couple of days (thank you, thank you, thank you Erich & Sara), but we need to figure out what's next beyond that.

This many things going belly up in the last two months can only mean one thing: Jihad.

The mower was only two years old and showed no hint that it was about to fail. The car, while a bit past it's prime, has given us no trouble. It was a bit overdue for an oil change, it's true, but no lights came on, no warning was issued, it just blew. Thankfully we where pulling up to a friend's house when it went south so we were in no real danger, but that doesn't change the fact that we now have no car.

The machines are out to get us in some Matrix/Terminatoresque fashion. Fear for us, and for yourselves, for they will strike when you least expect it.