Valve stems & Capacitors

This has not been the greatest week. Looking back on the last few days knowing how everything played out I reailze it could have been a lot worse, but that doesn't mean it wasn't frustrating and inconvenient.

On Monday I got a brand new set of tires for Teddy. I was excited... until Tuesday when I got a flat tire. I was so angry. I mean, I had barely driven 10 miles on my new tires, what are the odds that I would drive over a nail and destroy one the day after I bought it? (That was my irritated worst case scenario conclusion, I tend to jump on the pessimism train when things go wrong.) Luckily, my new tire did not have a gaping hole or shards of shrapnel embedded in it, just a defective valve stem. Tuesday ended up being a hassle, but by the end of the day I had four new tires back on my car.

On Wednesday I came home to a hot house. Our upstairs thermostat was in the 80's and climbing. Yesterday was another 100 degree day so it was suffocatingly warm upstairs without the air conditioner. I immediately had flashbacks to the time our upstairs unit died at the old house and it cost thousands of dollars to replace it. I dug out the AC manual to find that all warranties expired July 2011, ten days ago, and my mood got worse. I was already envisioning sleeping on the floor downstairs, having to take off work to meet repairmen, and parting with my hard earned savings. Matt came home and his first words were, "What's wrong?" so you can conclude that my face was not happy because those are not customarily the first words he says to me.

Luckily, there are businesses open 24/7 in this great country of ours, and around 10:30 last night Ryan the AC guy came and took one look at our outside unit in the dark and declared our capacitor was fried. After popping off a panel he showed Matt the exploded part and ten minutes later cool air started blowing upstairs again. I was so relieved that it was just a minor repair, I felt silly for getting so upset before we knew all the facts, perhaps there's a lesson for me about not over reacting in all this.

Before this week I had never heard of a valve stem or a capacitor. Well, except for the flux capacitor of course:
I'm hoping there's no more surprises the rest of the week, and I'm thankful that my car is working and my home is cool and comfortable.