daverea.com

If you get into a discussion of home ownership with most folks, you’ll hear about lots of benefits: you can decorate however you want, paint the walls, try your hand at all manner of home improvement projects, put in a hot tub! Today, however, I finally got to enjoy an entirely different side-benefit of home ownership: working on your car somewhere other than an apartment complex parking lot!

The Intrigue has needed a rear brake job since … well … maybe February? The squealer bars on the pads just started to rub a little after Valentines’ day, and by mid-March both sides were in full-squeal mode. Today, the equation was finally complete: decent weather, a few free hours and a stack of parts – I finally had the makings of the perfect mastercard commercial!

Brake pads from Napa: $26
A shiny new set of rotors: $50
A pair of work gloves to cover up your partially-sliced-up and bandaged left thumb: $3
Replacing your car’s brakes in your very own driveway: Priceless

Oh, yes, the whole thumb thing: Forgot to mention that I got a little too excited on Sunday while slicing onions and ended up taking a quarter-inch slice out of my thumbprint! As one might predict, onion juice makes a deep cut hurt a lot. After pacing around the kitchen yelling obscenities for a minute or two, I managed to click into medic mode and (a) wash the onion juice off my hand, and (b) put some pressure on it to stop the surprisingly profuse bleeding. Fortunately, it doesn’t hurt anymore – now it’s mostly just annoying when I try to put on socks or button up a shirt.

Now, on the cusp of a four-day holiday weekend, the next order of business is greasing all the spindles in the lawn mower, so we can cut the grass for the first time on Saturday!