Last night, Andrew and I visited our friends Kim and Chris, who also live in McKinney. We fawned over Kim's new engagement ring, talked wedding plans, and watched Sliding Doors, a pretty terrible Gwenyth Paltrow-as-British-woman movie.
Anyway, on the way over, Andrew noted that he has having to put more pressure than usual on the brake pedal of the Camry to get the desired effect. Not being a person who enjoys careening through stop lights, this made me a bit nervous. The nervousness didn't deter my husband, who commented on the status of the brakes at every opportunity, both on our way there and on the way back: "see, right now I'm pressing it down as hard as I can..." etc.
Needless to say, we decided to take the car into a car-fixin place today. We headed to Kwik Kar, where just two weeks ago we had the oil change and inspection done on this very car. In a way, this was probably not the smartest place to go, because it's pretty much just a lube-and-tune kind of a place. But they looked at the car and told us there was a pretty heavy-duty brake fluid leak happening, and in fact we should go somewhere to buy brake fluid in order to get us from Kwik Kar to the mechanic of our choice.
For the record, it threw me a little bit when the Kwik Kar people told us to see a mechanic. I mean, the guy telling us this is wearing a jumpsuit thing and has grease on him... but now I know the difference. So anyway...
Andrew started backing out of the bay and down the incline into a parking spot, when it became apparent that the brakes were GONE. He slammed on the emergency brake a few feet short of a 3 foot drop and a fence. The Kwik Kar guys helped us get the car backed up properly in the space, and we headed home to find a mechanic.
Long story short, we got the Camry towed to the mechanic, where the car sits even as I type. We'll know more about the full diagnosis tomorrow.
Without going into a lot of personal detail, I will finish this entry by saying we are really glad we saved our cash wedding gifts (in addition to the money I already had in savings) and have an emergency fund going already. There's something to be said for the fact that in the midst of all of the decisions we had to make today and suddenly becoming a one-car couple, we didn't have to go into financial crisis mode. So, yay for that! Thanks, Dave Ramsey!
Car update (and more birthday wishes) tomorrow!
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