Fledgling Mechanic, Part 2

Wow, it really has been a long time since I've last posted. The college life will do that I guess. If you all remember, I made a previous post about trying to fix Melissa's car and the absolute hilarity that ensued. Well, last week I went to get my oil changed and discovered that my brakes were worn down thin, and I was in critical need of new ones on all four wheels. Much to my chagrin, this was going to cost approximately 400 dollars (400 dollars we don't have, of course). Well, in my indignation, I said "it can't be that hard and I've got some friends who have done it before." So I called up Lucas to see what he was doing on Labor Day and we decided to get together to fix the brakes along with Luke's dad. The front brakes were no problem. We were done in less than 10 minutes per wheel. The rear brakes, however, were a different story. The rear brakes are shoe brakes and Luke's dad had never done shoe brakes before so we were on our own. We had to go borrow parts from another church member and even with those parts, it still took forever. The most interesting part about it was watching Lucas and his dad get frustrated with each other. We got them fixed, and they are working so far which is great because it saved us 300 bucks.

After this event, I was contemplating my recent surge of mechanical activity and realized that a person can really do anything when hard-pressed, especially if you know the right people. If I had had the money, I would have payed the mechanic no problem. But, desperation is a powerful force. It has worked twice for me now, at least with cars.