After putting it off for 1,000 miles or so, I finally took my Jeep to have it's oil changed yesterday. I took it to Meineke instead of the dealership, where it would have been free, but I don't trust the dealership peoples. Turns out the Meineke people aren't that great, either. They did change the oil and the air filter-- that air filter looked terrible-- but they are a little pricey. George Foreman seems so trustworthy, though. A two-dimensional cardboard version of him stared at me while I sat in the waiting area.

So my Jeep is all set, and pretty quickly, and I drive it about 1,000 feet down to the Wal-Mart for a few groceries. Yes, Wal-Mart is evil but these oil speculators and the weak dollar leave me financially and ethically challenged. When I come back to the Jeep, I notice two of the lug nut sleeves are missing. Naturally, I blame it on Meineke. The things were all there when I dropped it off, and now two were missing.

When I returned home a couple of hours later, I called up the friendly people who performed the service. I informed a gentleman who claimed to be the owner of what had happened. He didn't believe me. I was incredulous. He said he wasn't responsible. After a very heated debate on that point, he hung up. He called me back a few minutes later and the discussion continue, still quite warm. After pointing out that I was planning to return later for a $300 brake job and it was ridiculously bad business practice to lose multiple hundreds of dollars simply because he didn't want to replace a piece of aluminum that cost cents. He relented, finally, and said he'd replace them.

This morning I took the Jeep to The Brake Team to have them done for $150. Three hundred versus One Hundred Fifty? I'm not an idiot.

Well, maybe I am. Another two lug nut sleeves came off today. I still blame Meineke, as none had fallen off before they touched it. I actually heard the fourth one clanging onto the road as I u-turned at the intersection of Pebble and Spencer to check my post office box. I retrieved the slippery little bugger from the middle of the road, but not before it'd been run over. (Memories of my Treo last weekend!)

But wow! I'd forgotten what it was like to have brakes! My rotors were a bit warped, but machinable. My front pads were paper thin and had to be replaced. Such smooth braking! Ah! I was so used to pushing the pedal down and feeling like I was seated in a 190 horsepower sex toy.... vibrations, vibrations. I'm not keen on such things.

Speaking of sex toys, in my post office box I found an unexpected package with no name on the return address. I opened it up to find this little surprise I'd forgotten was on it's way:

I know what you're thinking, He only put that on here because it's Magnum. Maybe, but for whatever size you need, you can get one free at www.trojancondoms.com. I read a post by some ignorant man (or kid, I don't know) on the internet informing people that nobody actually needs larger-sized condoms because the regular ones will stretch as large so as to fit your arm, and who has a dick that big? Not me! Unless that arm is attached to a toddler or something, but I digress. While it is, in fact, true that a regular condom will stretch a good deal, I assure you that slightly larger ones are required for the comfort of some.

And so my weekend truly begins........