{"id":661,"date":"2003-12-15T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-16T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chocolatemussolini.com\/cm\/default.asp?n=147"},"modified":"2003-12-15T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-12-16T06:00:00","slug":"serpentine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/?p=661","title":{"rendered":"Serpentine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hombres,<\/p>\n<p \/>This morning I made my way, even brighter and earlier than usual, to work. The weather, as I mentioned previously, sucked ass. It was just cold and damp enough to cover the entire state in a thin layer of ice, which was invisible to the naked eye as it coated the interstate. But since I have lived in Minnesota for nigh unto 20 years now, I know how these things work, and I was careful to consume my oatmeal while still traversing local streets on the way to and from the coffeeshop, and not on the freeway. I am safety-minded at all times, my friends.<\/p>\n<p \/>Near the airport, I saw a car facing the wrong way on the right-hand shoulder, probably having just spun out. The car approaching it seemed to not quite understand, and hit the brakes at the last second, doing a 360 and ending up parked directly behind the first car, also facing backwards. There was so much artistry to that maneuver, I had to wonder if it was intentional.<\/p>\n<p \/>Having almost reached the office in Maplewoodbury, I started to give thanks to the gods of shitty road conditions for allowing me to reach my intended destination. As I switched lanes to exit, I heard an unwelcome noise from the front end of Chico, and the various flashing and pinging noises my car makes when it&#8217;s displeased. It sounded like the front tire had blown, but the angry red battery light told me otherwise. I felt the familiar tug from the power steering going out as I propelled my newly-disabled vehicle directly into the poorly-marked handicapped spot in front of PDQ.<\/p>\n<p \/>Now, I might not be a certified mechanic (yet), but I do know car problems. So when I popped the hood, I could at least congratulate myself on the correct diagnosis: the drive belt was gone. Now, having had this replaced, together with the pulley that seized up and broke it, I know that the correct term is &#8216;serpentine belt&#8217;. And to think it only cost me $240 to learn that.<\/p>\n<p \/>Merry Xmas, Chico!<br \/>Jenni<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hombres, This morning I made my way, even brighter and earlier than usual, to work. The weather, as I mentioned previously, sucked ass. It was just cold and damp enough to cover the entire state in a thin layer of ice, which was invisible to the naked eye as it coated the interstate. But since &#8230;<a class=\"post-readmore\" href=\"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/?p=661\">read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/po9qt-aF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}