Oh . . . karma. But with a surprise happy ending!

So remember that one time when I talked about how yay and happy I was on account of we just paid off my student loan and how I'm fer shure going to get us living off one income and maybe the Obama administration should call me to get my budgeting advice because I'm Just. That. Awesome at it?

Yeah.

As my dear superstitious GH would say, it's like you're just giving karma the chance to come after you.

Our first month of just-living-on-one-paycheck-except-for-the-part-where-we-treated-ourselves-to-an-anniversary-getaway also turned out to be the month where:

#1. Our electric bill went from $40 to $100, thanks to the freaking A/C that we probably don't even NEED because the pioneers didn't have it and they were fine.

#2. I went over on our cell phone minutes for the first time in EVER, resulting in a bill that was $50 higher than normal. Awesome.

#3. The annual Tivo bill arrived. (See "things we don't need because the pioneers don't have them." Note how I only use this argument on the things I don't care about.)

#4. We drove a whole lot, doubling our gas expenses.

#5. GH's car broke.

This last one was the best. The power window on GH's 1992 Honda Accord has been on the blink a while, causing the window to work its way down until we could force it back up. It decided last week to break down completely, leaving the window stuck in a half-opened position, just begging the many car thieves and smash & grabbers in our area to come take a look.

(Before I continue this story, I have pretty much decided that power windows are of the Devil and are just an excuse to put one more thing into your car that can break and have to be expensively fixed. Cuz really, it's not like much could go wrong with the manual kind. And when you inevitably roll off the road and land in a river and are supposed to swim out through the window because you can't get the door open, are you really sure those power windows are going to work underwater? Yeah. Thanks for letting me just drown there with my hypothetical babies, power windows.)

So we take the car to our usual place and they say the necessary part will need to be ordered and should cost between $110 and $130. And then the labor will cost about $150. Great. Perfect. Except that night GH caught me online while I was at work to have this conversation with me:

GH: pep boys just called, they say that because it's an american car they can only find the piece they need from the dealer and that because of that the total is going to be 600 dollars!!!
me: blink. blink blink.

And that's when my brain completely imploded. This, for a car that is maybe worth $1500.

He asked if he should call them back and tell them to go ahead and I said NONONOnonononono, wait until we could talk about it. Two hours later, he got back online for this conversation

GH: you there?
me: Yep, what's up?
GH: hey I think I just found the part i needed on ebay for forty dollars.
me: Are you for sure serious?
GH: I called the website and he said it was what I needed... then I called pepboys to see if they'd install it if I brought the part in and they say yeah... there just wouldn't be a warranty.
me: Wow. When I get home, [very specific promise that I won't repeat here].

So yeah. He totally found the right part. It arrived in a few days, we drove it over, they installed it, it works, and the peasants rejoiced. And we paid about $100 less than we would have if they'd just found the part initially for the price they first gave us. (Big note to self: Always try this online thing it is awesome.) And now I'm not even so upset about the way our budget went all to crap this month since we dodged such a huge bullet.

I've been telling everyone who will listen about the genius I married. Then GH confessed to me that the only reason he even thought to look online was because he desperately did not want to experience what I would be like if we actually had to dump $600 into his car over a window.

I think that is what is called Being a Good Team.

Posted in: a better way to live