Against my window, I can’t stand the rain

We had a quiet night in Gerladton, and while Becky loved the normal bed, I had a terrible nights sleep. Breakfast was included, so we stuffed our face with rubber pancakes and concentrated orange juice. We arrived at Tyreright bang on 9am for our allotted wheel fitting. The store manager mumbled something about some problem, but not to worry as they had a fix for us.  After five, perplexing, minutes, we finally learnt that the tyres they’d ordered for us weren’t on the freight that morning, but not to worry as he had a better deal for us. He told us that we really wanted a different tyre, and that he would have recommended them to us anyway… and all for $275 a tyre, with no special deal. Confused, Becky asked if that was the best price. He tapped his calculator for a couple of seconds and brought the price down to $245 per tyre. I doubt the calculator even had batteries in it. Becky got a little annoyed and pointed out that we’d made a special journey here and were expecting 4 tyres for $800. He told us it wasn’t his fault and this was the best he could do. We thanked him for his generous offer for tyres we didn’t want and left. Fuck store manager Steve and fuck Tyreright.

After debating our options and checking other tyre places in Gerladton we decided to continue on to Perth without a spare. As we were driving down Becky looked for other tyre outlets and found that Bob Jane also sold the same tyres, had a 4 for 3 offer and would price match Tyreright… in your face, Steve at Tyreright.

Once in Perth we booked the car for the tyre change on Tuesday morning, as it was a long weekend, and checked in to Sage hotel in the centre of Perth. The hotel was lovely, but the weather…

For the rest of the day we sat in our lovely hotel room, doing fuck all. It took all our energy to go out for dinner. The weather was terrible, but at least we weren’t in a tent.

The next day Becky forced me to go to IKEA. If you remember, we said we’d visit them all, well now we’ve done Perth. As it was a rainy Sunday, the whole of WA was there. I’ve never seen anything like it, it was a mess and people had parked everywhere. Even Becky started to rue our trip there. The queue for meatballs was far too long, so Becky returned some pillowcases she’d bought in Brisbane and used the money back to buy some Swedish crisps. It was a nightmare, and after getting indigestion from the hotdogs, we swore we’d never visit another IKEA in Australia.

Civil disobedience

The rest of the long weekend was spent doing nothing, but complaining about the shitty weather, watching shitty movies and eating shitty food.

FUUUUCCCK!

We had only booked the hotel until Tuesday morning, and had booked into a cheaper apartment for another 3 nights, so we could have the car serviced and checked over by Kmart Auto Perth, because those fuckers have never let us down. We checked out of the hotel Tuesday morning, had the tyres changed by Bob Jane, but still had some time to kill before we could check into our apartment. GUESS WHERE WE WENT? DID YOU GUESS? I-fucking-kea. Becky had forgiven them for the other day, and besides it was Tuesday and would no-way be as busy.  

It wasn’t as busy, but still too busy for me. We had some meatballs and cake, but had to pay cash, as the refund card Becky had wasn’t accepted in the restaurant. At the counter the restaurant cashier said something about IKEA Perth being a franchise. Becky looked at her in disgust, explaining she didn’t know what she was talking about. All Swedes are taught in school that Ingvar Kamprad owns IKEA, and he owns them all, including the shitty one in Perth. What that cashier had said counts as a hate crime in Sweden.

Becky had decided she wanted to buy a duvet, as the cold weather had her very worried about being back in a tent. As the restaurant and shop are different she again tried to pay using the refund card. The shop cashier mentioned that it isn’t accepted here, as they are a franchise and separate to Brisbane. After I had calmed Becky down, the cashier said she could e-mail Brisbane and find out how much is on the card then deduct the $22 for the items, but it could take up to an hour for them to reply… Becky said ok, we’d wait…for $22. The shocked cashier gave us a $7 coupon for a bit of cake and a coffee, and we went to wait in the restaurant. After an hour of waiting and googling “franchise, IKEA”, Becky went to inquire how it was going. She was told, by another cashier, that the e-mail had been sent but they’d heard nothing back, and they might not hear anything today. We left without the duvet and Becky swore she’d never visit another IKEA in Australia…

The cold weather meant I had turned to red wine for comfort. Becky was struggling with the rising cost of this holiday, and hinted that I should try to keep the cost of my alcoholism down. So I picked out a bottle from the $8 bargain bin, but noted that the same bottle was in the $7 bin! Confused, I asked a cashier how much it was… I asked about a $1 difference… on a shit bottle of wine… clearly I was in shock. It was $7 and you could taste every dollar.

The next day I drove the car to Kmart for a service and told them of the noises and problems we were having. They had loosened the handbrake in Darwin, and said we needed new pads. Since then the handbrake had been terrible, and I was looking forward to getting that fixed. A couple of hours later they called to say that the handbrake was fine and just needed to be tightened, we needed a new air filter and the power steering pump was leaking and needed to be changed, but they couldn’t do the work needed on the exhaust. The pump would cost $1000, and they slipped in $16 to change a light. We reluctantly agreed to the list, including another degrease of the engine to pinpoint other leaks and left the car with them for the rest of the day.

I found an exhaust place around the corner and he said he could help us out tomorrow morning, once we’d got the car back. We then spent the rest of the day consoling each other about how it would all be worth it, and it’s just money, and at least it was only our pension we were spending, all while walking around Perth in the fucking rain.

Enjoying the sights

The only way we could deal with the weather was to take solace in cake and coffee/hot chocolate.

Calories don't count if you're wearing a hoodie

I also, stupidly, told Becky that I’d take a break from drinking to save a little bit of cash. It was more an empty gesture, as the $7 a day I was spending on paint thinner wasn’t going to make much difference in the scheme of things. We spent the evening feeling sorry for ourselves and moping around the apartment watching shit movies on Netflix.

The next morning Becky called Kmart for an update and found out the power steering pump, which was definitely leaking as they could see the red fluid everywhere, wasn’t leaking after all and was just covered in oil from other leaks. While I celebrated that we didn’t need to spend $1000 replacing it, Becky was pissed that they’d misdiagnosed it in the first place. When we picked it up, the mechanic explained that after degreasing the engine it became clear that the leak was from elsewhere. So all they’d done is replace the air filter, and a few other small jobs on top of the service. It still cost over $300, but I felt we’d dodged an expensive bullet…. fired by Kmart.

Straight after spending money on the car, we drove to Exhaust World to spend more money on the car. The owner, Peter, was an extremely nice guy, and after a quick inspection told us the flange gasket needed changing…haha, flange. It would only cost $100 or so, and I felt good. We went for a spot of lunch while he did the work, at a restaurant that turned out to be a trendy, expensive subway.

Calories don't count if you're wearing the same hoodie, and the food is over priced

Our enjoyable day was ruined by a call from the exhaust shop exclaiming that the simple job wasn’t so simple or cheap after all. We returned to the shop, where Peter explained that, after changing the gasket, he found there were cracks in the down pipe, and would have to be replaced. He told us he could get the parts and have it done the next day. It would cost roughly $900… so there goes the “saving” for the power steering pump. We booked another night at the apartment, and puckered up for a financial fucking.

That afternoon we went to Kmart department store to get a blanket. For the first time in my life I suggested we should go back to IKEA to get a better one and just pay for it in cash. Despite the novelty of me wanting to go to IKEA of my own accord, Becky was still too incensed by the idea that Ingvar wasn’t the owner of them all. While Becky was spending her time amongst the quilts and blankets of Kmart department store, I’d noticed that Kmart automotive hadn’t put the splash plate back on the car, so we’d have to go visit those fucking dickwads one more time. After a topsy turvy day I was pleased to be back at the apartment watching shit movies, eating shit food and complaining about the shit car.

The next day we left the car with Exhaust World in the morning and the whole thing was done by midday for $100 less than expected, meaning we had the car back to do something that afternoon. The sun had finally come out and we decided to take a trip to Freemantle. A few kilometres on to the freeway and the engine light came on… THIS FUCKING CAR!

We turned around and headed back to the exhaust shop but after restarting the engine the light was off. We chatted with Peter about the possible cause, and he didn’t seem to see to think anything he had done could have caused it. He was very helpful, and even borrowed a diagnostic tool from a neighbouring garage to help us out. It turns out cars have something called a knocking sensor, and ours had given off an odd knock, setting off a warning, but not sending us into limp mode. I didn’t know what any of that meant, but nodding and stroked my chin making manly, “aww, yeah, shit” noises. Peter cleared the codes, and gave us some info about the issue. He was very kind, considering he was well with in his rights to tell us to jog on.

We decided to cautiously continue to Freemantle for the day, and hope nothing else fell off the car. The sun was still out, and we had a nice walk around Freemantle, but did nothing of note.

Blue skies, but still a little chilly

That evening we spent our time consoling ourselves on the dollar we spent that week on accommodation and car troubles. The car had started to feel like a liability and on the verge of being scrapped. But perhaps we were being too hard on the car. We had been going for just under three months, and had travelled approximately 15000km, driving over some pretty hard terrain, so perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised we’re having a few problems… still fucking sucks.

A simple sunday arvo drive