who doesn't love to shop?

Well this couldn't have happened at a better time in a sense ... meaning just in time for True Story Tuesday .... And this is going to be a 2-part series because the story in it's entirety is really something that deserves to be blogged about ...

For more stories, click the pic above ... for MY story, read below ....

Let's start this story at last Wednesday when I called the car repair shop to get my car in for a tune up. It's been running a little rough, and at 11 years old, needs that kind of tender loving care. The day, I swear to jeezus, the day I called the shop, my cars little rough running turned into roughER running right to the point where it was taking a good 30 seconds to pull away from a dead stop. And since most of you have never seen me drive, that's NOT acceptable. I pass any and all on the roads, no matter who or what it is. I have a collection of speeding tickets to prove that I simply can't tolerate that kind of behavior from my vehicle. And I've been around the block several times with bad cars (and I'll get into that in part 2 of my series), so I knew what was going on with the car. I did once own a car that went through a litre of tranny fluid every few days and I actually parked it over a heap of cat litter to soak it up so it wouldn't look trashy in front of my house (aaaa am I ever killing myself laughing at that in my head ...). So as scheduled, I dropped the car off at the repair shop this morning, gave them a quick update and hopped on the bus to work. And I just got the call. THE call. My poor ugly little honda civic has a list of "problems" that need to be "addressed", from the tires, right up to the battery, and a good chunk of everything in between ..... Unbelievably, to the tune of $5000 ladies and gentlemen. Which was really overkill on their part because I wasn't planning on spending even $1000 to fix 'er up. So, my new task (never mind the house repairs or the gym for a while I guess): 

I have some shopping to do. And not the good kind. The time consuming expensive kind, the kind that will test the character and worthiness of my financial institutions.