Day Two and Counting

Today is Day Two of a couple of important endeavors.  It's the second day of my project to realize my passion for story telling and writing.  I'm doing this by writing something every day.  And, it is day two of a week of vacation that I plan to enjoy a lot.

We are actually enjoying a "staycation", like so many other people in this time of financial strain and uncertainty.  Yesterday was mostly just like any other Sunday for us.  We did a few chores around the house and then relax for the afternoon and evening.

Then today we ran around doing tasks such as getting a haircut, buying a few groceries and getting a smog check on our car.  That last task was a story in itself.


The car is relatively new, a 2005 Hyundai.  It has recently been serviced by our local garage.  They would have spotted most problems during their check, so we were pretty confident that there would be no problems.

But, it failed.

Turns out that what probably caused the problem was that a repair during that recent trip to the garage required disconnecting the battery.  When that is required, it takes up to 100 miles for the car's computer to fully initialize and reset.  A smog check in that period will almost surely fail.

So, I was kind of upset with my garage for not forewarning me about this fact.  Now I will have to spend another $33 to get a recheck after the computer resets.  So I went back to talk to them.  They have a good relationship with the smog check station next door to them.  When they hooked up to my car, the smog computer showed no problem.

It was beginning to look like the other check station had a computer problem of some type.  I went back over there and when he hooked up his computer, it also showed no problem.  He waived the recheck fee and proceeded with the test with both of us now confident that the car would pass.  But, it didn't.

Some test buried in the process returned the same failure code as before.  The technician admitted that there seemed to be a conflict between the computer readouts at the beginning and at the end of the test.  Now I have to contact a referee with the State of California who will determine which reading will be accepted.  If it is ruled that the car failed the test, I will be facing a repair bill of several hundred dollars.

If you  know who that referee is, put in a good word for me, please!