Worse and worse

My mechanic called at mid-day to tell me what he’d found when he opened up the car.  It turned out the rattle was not in the clutch, as I’d thought.

It was the engine itself.

He said that from what he could see, Number Four cylinder had blown out and the damage is so bad there’s nothing to do but to put in another whole engine—either a used one, which would have an unknown life remaining and unknown potential problems, or a rebuilt engine that would, as he said, “be a known quantity.”  At the same time, he thought we should rebuild the clutch, since it was already giving trouble (with which I agree).

Now I get to try to find the four thousand dollars all this work will cost, because we certainly don’t have it.

Little Nemo must take the young termite from Gasoline Alley.  Fnord.