i pull into my carport this evening and my japanese milf next door neighbor has the hood of her ‘03 corolla propped up and is staring at her engine bay with a befuddled look on her face. she’s apparently late in picking up her jailbait daughter so being the mechanic and all around good samaritan that i am i offer my assistance. she tells me in really effed up english that she’s looking for the “coolant” so i point to the radiator cap and coolant reservoir tank. we somehow come to the conclusion that she doesn’t have any extra coolant to top off with, and not wanting to mix whatever she has with the wacky coolant i use, i tell her she can temporarily use water. so we get the hose and put about 2 cups of water into the reservoir before it’s full.

so then i bother to ask, why did you think you needed coolant? “was it over-heating” to which she says yes, and now i’m worried, because there was plenty of coolant in the system, and if it’s still over heating it’s probably the thermostat which is a trip to autozone and at least 30 minutes of wrench time. but while all this is going on in my head, she gets in the car and turns on the air conditioner and is unhappy that it’s still blowing hot air!

i guess it makes sense. coolant = cool temperature… it’s a logical conclusion… woman or japanese aside. so now i’m thinking fuck, she needs to recharge her AC compressor with R134a, and it probably has a leak, so even if i do a recharge it’s not going to last long, and the AC isn’t blowing *any* cool air, so it must have a hell of a leak and it’s going to be a costly repair for her.

then i realized she never pushed the fucking AC button.