Island mechanics.

So our car died two weeks ago. We knew the starter was going bye bye, but were assured by our "no-longer-our-mechanic" mechanic that it should last a long while yet. It seems people here are more interested in not getting paid to not work than to make any money at all. Interesting lifestyle, as opposed to say...the States. Where people would rather get paid to not work.

I digress. For the last two weeks our precious little Ross-mobile has been sitting out at Ziggy's by the beach. Kristin was attempting to return from volleyball with Chris when little precious gave her the finger...so to speak.

Because of our impending finals, we have been lax about getting her back. I checked on her last week, attempted to start her, and was rewarded with a lovely grating grinding noise. Thus starts our adventure of trying to decipher Island Mechanics.

Having had bad luck previously with our "not-our-mechanic-any-longer" mechanic, we consulted the aforementioned Chris who assured us that starters are really easy to install. If we could just find the part, he would put it in with no problem.

Having no Advanced Auto Parts (etc.) here on the island, and also no Island Yellow Pages to consult, I approached our anatomy prof Dr. Danny who happens to be a major car guy on the side.

Side note: I've been drawing the darnedest little cartoons for the vet prep class, nothing special really, but Dr. Danny saw and few and now seems very interested in my illustrating his anatomy text he's working on. Or at least that's the rumor...no actual deals as of yet.

Can you imagine my surprise when Dr. Danny offered to have his mechanic tow our car back to the dorms? He also gave me the name of his auto parts supplier (aptly named Island Auto Supplies) where they have anything and everything we might need (including Flywheels lights for our wheels, SOOO tricking out precious once she's all better!!). I called yesterday morning, and low and behold they had just the right starter in stock! At $800 EC it is a steal, and with Chris installing it we are saving a bundle!

And after all of these wonderful things happened yesterday, we took our anatomy lab final and it was AWESOME. Super easy, very well prepared was I, which is good because I need all of the help I can in that class....what did that 2nd semester tell me earlier? They failed something like 29 people last semester in Anat 1? Out of something like 100 students? They had to adjust the curve to prevent losing too many students?? Hmm.....wonder where all of my stress comes from.
Let's all just hope precious is still sitting there at the beach. With all of her tires. That would be a wonderful pre-finals surprise.