Gotta love cascade destruction

As I'd kinda feared, the dead alternator took the battery with it into Auto Part Hell. Mind you, the battery was 4 years old already, and in battery years that's "Shouldn't you be picking out a headstone?" So, parts and labor came to another $400. Add that to the $700 spent on the car seat, and an entire take-home paycheck has just been sunk into the car, in the space of a week and a half. Between a third and half of that total being labor, so 4-5 days of my work in exchange for 4-5 hours of their work. No...one does not get a PhD for the money, eh? :) Then again, today's work was done in an unairconditioned shop on the hottest day of the year so far, and I sit in an air conditioned office or stand in an air conditioned lecture hall, so I'm not gonna complain TOO much....