Amy Currioman

One thing I learned a long time ago, as a woman, is that there are a lot of times that people will try to convince you (me) that things are broken when they are not, or charge more money for something than they should.  For example three years ago I took my sister’s ford escort to the local fast oil change shop (which I will leave unnamed, but it is a huge national chain) to have the oil changed.   I was doing her a favor because she was having a hard time managing the time to get out and do it herself.

The mechanic that worked on the car tried to convince me that she needed a new  water pump, battery, windshield wipers and timing belt!  He gave me a huge estimate of the cost!  I told him that I’d let my hubby check those out before deciding to do anything.  Well, my hubby took a look at the car and said that the car didn’t need any of that!  And even if it did need all that, the cost should be half of what was being estimated!

Aside from having to change the windshield wipers once, the car is still running fine three years later!  No, it didn’t need a new battery.  Needless to say I have not returned to that particular fast oil change shop.

That is why I like the repairpal.com website – it helps me find reputable mechanics and get estimates on line.  That helps me to determine if I’m being treated fairly on repairs.

I was taking a nap three days ago when my son came into my room and announced that my computer had been infected with the nasty malware program that calls itself “Security Tools.” What a pain in the neck that was! Fortunately I have a younger brother who lives nearby that makes his living doing IT support. So I called him and he told me that I could bring my CPU to his place and he’d fix it for me. He had to squeeze it in with his paying clients, and while he was at it he installed a bunch of new programs for me. I had to “make do” with my back-up computer in the spare bedroom while my “main computer” was at my brother’s. That was a pain in the neck, but I struggled along.

Thankfully I was able to pick up my CPU last night and bring it home. So now I’m back to almost normal, have to do a little bit of catchup bookkeeping! Whoever created that awful malware should be ashamed of themselves! I’d like to say some very strong things about/to that person, but that would ruin my “family rating” on this blog! All I CAN say is that they have created some very bad Karma, and it is well deserved bad Karma!

My good friend was recently fired from her job as a school bus driver for Fauquier County.  This was exactly one week from the date that her school bus was struck by a car that was running a red light.  Although the driver of the car was given a ticket for running the red light, my friend was fired from her job.  The reason she was given was totally bogus – that the administration had “lost confidence” that she could handle another emergency.  Prior to her being fired, she was congratulated and thanked for keeping a calm head by the vice-principle of the school she was driving for, and sent an email of gratitude from the mother of one of the students for keeping a calm head and keeping the kids feeling confident and safe.

I think that the real reason she was fired was that she had told her boss that she was going to go see a therapist to talk to about the accident; she wanted to make sure that her lack of an emotional breakdown was not some kind of suppression that would end up coming to surface at a bad time later on.  And the therapist did assure her that she was handling everything perfectly well and to not worry about not having had a nervous meltdown.  I think that she was smart to go see the therapist, and I think that the county should offer counseling to any bus driver involved in an accident.  But the county does not do that, and instead of giving their employees the support that the need, they treat them like disposable food trays.  That’s very shameful.

I have several dear friends that keep forwardingme emails that some jerk sent to them that makes some kind of false claim.  They are outrageous claims that are making someone (or some organization) look bad.  Today I got an email stating that the ACLU was trying to make all of the crosses in military cemetaries be removed.  Well, that just didn’t sound right to me, so I went to snopes.com myself to check it out.  According the snopes, that is an old rumor that has been circulating around that is completely false.  I really wish my friends would check with snopes themselves before forward garbage like that!

I have a very dear friend who keeps sending me emails that are slamming President Obama.  I have asked her repeatedly to stop sending me political emails.  We are at opposite ends of the spectrum politically, and I make a point to never send emails to people who are of a different political persuasion that slam their candidates or their party’s elected officials, and it makes me angry when people send me things that are slamming mine.    I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but it is very vexing that she keeps harping on the subject!  Most recently I asked her about a month ago (again) to stop sending me things like that and told her that it was going to be a huge strain on our friendship if she kept doing it.  So what happens?  Now I got an email from her comparing President Obama with Adolf Hitler!  Give me a break!