Mechanical Malfunctions

Sometimes at three AM when you can't sleep it seems perfectly reasonable to eat a bowl of frosted mini wheats and blog. It all started out with Friday the Thirteenth and the check engine light leaping to glaring life on the Outback's dashboard display. It's probably neither here nor there that this event occurred on F13, but you can never be too sure. The most annoying thing is that the cruise control won't work during the check engine phenomenon! Which is some clever aggravation developed by a coven of Japanese automobile engineers that passive aggressively compels you to get your car checked out. Which I shall do on Monday. But that got me thinking about how historically I have experienced major appliance/car breakdown problems in threes. Which started just over a week ago with water all over the floor in the laundry room. Not quite a flood but enough water that some cleanup efforts are required. This happened once earlier in the spring so I knew what it was. My water softener is ancient, so ancient that replacement parts are no longer available. There is a float thingamajig that no longer functions reliably so water ends up dumping out of an overflow valve when it cycles. Like I said, not a great deal of water, but enough that ran into the nearby sump hole, triggering the sump pump to, well, pump. And pump it did. And did. And did. Until it sounded like it was attempting to pump out the gravel in the bottom of the sump hole. This was not a good sounding noise. So I unplugged it. Fortunately its services are not immediately required. It has been a dry spring and summer so until the water softener overflowed it hadn't run for nearly a year. The sump pump is new, though, freshly installed just over a year ago. So I'm hoping it came equipped with more than a one year warranty. Between the car, the water softener and the sump pump, we are at three and I hope that concludes this trifecta of malfunction maladies. The softener is still trickling toward the floor drain through a chunk of hose that I attached to the overflow valve. I expect I'll be giving my favorite plumber a call on Monday. Right after I call a mechanic. He's not my favorite. But I don't want to wait for the next broadcast of Car Talk. Hosted by my favorite mechanics, Tom and Ray Magliozzi. But people seem to wait at least six months to call and inquire about a check engine light, if not a year, and they will have retired by then. Monday is shaping up to be a busy one. Good thing there's a day of rest in between.