She found a pulser and an EM cannon (more ladle-like) for my dad. He's developed a shadow over his right kidney, at least looks so on the ultrasound, and I got a feeling he's shit scared he may get cancer and become an unbearable problem to mom. The doctors gave him two years if he doesn't go to surgery and perhaps five if he does, but we talked him out of it. We're sending this thing instead, betting on the doctors' habits (i.e. they just want to do more work and sell more drugs).
When I was on the way to pick Lena from school, just when I went through the first major intersection and halfway to the next minor one, still in the general area of home, the corolla's engine died. Well, well... used the inertia to take a left (a bit harder with no power steering), with no turn signal (ah so the battery is empty), and made it out of the intersection just fine. Then I pushed it a bit further, just to stay out of the way, and then discovered I didn't bring my cell phone - no habit yet. I hitched an old man to borrow a cell phone to call home.
Nina came by a few minutes later (good that she's working from home) and I just explained what happened and told her to go pick Lena, which she did. Then she and Ender came and diagnosed the problem - the alternator was dead. A brand new nine years old refurbished one, that I put in when we were in Nag's Head. While we were around it, a nice little cabrio with two girls stopped by, and the one who drove just came to our open hood and said "I'm a mechanic... what's the problem". She tried to do some diagnosing of her own and basically went through the same steps we already did. Then she got a bit bossy and tried to order us around, to which Ender said "you may be a mechanic, but I'm a certified Toyota technician, so I kind of outrank you, so don't worry, we got this". After which she, reluctantly, vanished. He said „must be a lesbo, playing macho for her girlfriend“. She was mentioned many times later, and the line "stand back, I'm a mechanic", with a Superman stance, is still famous in the family.
Ender went to buy a new alternator, while I waited. A cop came by, and asked if I needed any help (no thanks, I got a guy who's on this, he went off to buy an alternator, just waiting for him). He lit a couple of flares on the road behind me, as if I was on some highway - nobody drives more than 35 mph on this stretch of the road, it's an approach to a housing block. Then Ender came in the Miatta (picked Nina again), mounted the new refurbished alternator, and then we jump-cabled it and, well, it held. The battery was new anyway, and the couple of miles I drove around just to charge it - drive around those apartments and take the longer way home - were enough for it to stay charged.
Still, the decision to sell it remained, no matter how good it looked each time something got fixed. Looking for a car, and kind of like the idea of driving a Matrix.