Ah'm A-Gonna Blow Ya' Ta' Smithereenies, Ya' Long-Eared Gallute

You know how when cartoon characters swear, they just make up long strings of nonensical syllables:

"Consarn-dagblamed-flatfalluttin'-gingaderby-cotpollymoddle-zinderflintin'", etc., etc.?

Well, I've been doing a lot of that lately, sort of a perpetual stream of made-up cuss words that would make Darren McGavin's character in A Christmas Story blush in embarrassment.

And for good reason.

My bus is once again back in the shop, or at this point parked on the street outside the garage, into which it will presumably get hauled sometime tomorrow morning. Went out to start it this morning and got about 300 feet before it conked out and refused to restart. Unfortunately, I was in Bellevue housesitting at the time, so had to have it towed back across the lake.

This makes three trips to the car hospital in the past two weeks.

Fortunately, the guy who had the last crack at it was in the shop, and so I was able to describe the problem, which he seemed to feel wasn't going to be all that difficult to rectify. I hope he's right, because I'm beginning to feel a bit like Wile E. Coyote, contemplating yet another purchase from the ACME Catalogue.

And we all know how those purchases always turn out...