Lemon

Fun Fact No. 35: The Scrunchie Lives. Remember that Sex & the City episode where Carrie berates Burger for having the protaganist of his book wear a scrunchie? Carrie Bradshaw would DIE here - scrunchie hell. Sold on every street corner, scrunchies are IT. And worse, they have the fake hair ones too. Could I be more shallow and superficial? Luckily I have short hair.


So I was in the market for a motorcycle and I went shopping for one this week. My friend Milton zipped me around to various stores looking a new little vespa-like dealies that are cute and friendly and automatic. Of course in my price range, I can only afford the no-name Chinese motos, and some people advised against them because if they break there are no replacement parts. Others said go for it because they´re only $600 and I can just sell it back in July for slightly less than the original value. I was also keeping my eye out for a used one, and my friend Milton´s uncle, Angel, said he found one for me on Friday and did I want to take a look on Saturday.

Well, Friday & Saturday were really crappy days because I was super homesick, frustrated, depressed, and all around icky. So on Saturday when I went to take a look at this motorcycle, all my common sense flew out of my brain, I ran on emotional fuel and bought a serious lemon for about $385, thinking that it would only need a few minor repairs. Did I take it to a mechanic to see what it might need before buying it? Nope. Did I run the plates with the police to see if it has any violations or infractions? Nope. I just went ahead and bought it. It´s a Honda, so in theory it should be a good little motorcycle. But along with the fuel injector, oil thingy, rings, clutch and other stuff, it´s a good $100 to fix. Well, I know you´re thinking that in the grand scheme of things, $100 to fix a Honda motorcycle is nothing compared to what it would be to fix a car with that amount of problems in the states (thousands, literally) but for something that was supposed to be a steal, I´m definitely on the losing side of things.


I made a knee-jerk decision that I regret and I tried to get my money back and return the motorcycle, but the guy already spent the cash. Or so he says. At this rate I could have bought a little Chinese number. But then again, about half the people say that the Chinese models are no good and the half think they´re great, which means they´re probably about average. So I´m stuck with this lemon and then there´s the whole "find an honest mechanic" problem. After getting a few opinions, I went with a guy who´s a friend of a friend who has a good track record and lives only 3 doors down from my friend´s house. His diagnosis was right in line with everyone else´s and he has the same model motorcycle (1997 Hero Honda, see above). Well, despite my emotional crisis, I do like the bike. It handles well and it´s a good size - not too big and not too small. I can get out of 1st gear no problem, which is always scary when I´m on the roads here. Of all the motorcycles I´ve driven here (five), this one is the easiest to shift.

As Mario Sr. said, you live and you learn. And así es la vida. I´ve made worse mistakes, and I did learn a lot. Although it cost a good amount of humble pie and emotional distress. When life gives you lemons...