Prepare thyself...this be a ranting moment.......................

So, have you ever been driving to no where in particular and your sweet and innocent little car suddenly starts emitting these dreadful metallic scraping sounds from beneath it's poor old hood? I have. Sadly, one night it grew silent. As is typical of my Irish luck (my Great Gran was an Irish import, and she liked to reminded all of us that when they referred to the "Luck of the Irish," they were not referring to good luck and "only an American who's had it too good for too long would claim elsewise!") when she (my car, not gran) began to run silent, I knew all was lost. $300+ dollars later, and the mechanic said my darling little Escort was fixed......
........
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......................oh no, it doesn't end there.....Irish remember......
so, I asked him to take a gander at the rear passenger brake since it had been leaking brake fluid for about four months at about $10 per week. Hmm...let me explain.........................one lovely evening sometime in July, I was cruising down the road near my "off the beaten path" home at roughly 20mph when a fuzzy little brown streak of bunny flew across the asphalt just ahead of my meandering tires. Of course, I always drive exceptionally slower at night because you never know what timid bit of a beastie may run out in front of you (and yes, I do my best to dodge the hoppers during midnight frog conventions too), so I was able to slam on brakes in time. Unfortunately when I did so, there was a rather loud "pop" that came from my somewhere toward the trunk of the car...................
.............and so back to the mechanic, he took a look at the brakes. Now, it's $500+ later. But I suppose I should have seen that one coming, I am Irish after all.