Yesterday when I pulled in at the sitter's house to pick up the boys, my truck had smoke rolling out from under the hood. Lots of smoke. Lots of white, smelly smoke. That's never good, is it?

I'll omit all the details of the 2 hours that followed, but I will tell you that it was enough to give me a major headache. I did end up driving it to my friends house to have him look at it, and then home with the A/C turned off (104 here yesterday, people!) because it was blowing hot air, and because it smoked less with it turned off. There were rumors that it was the compressor, the radiator, or possibly the alternator after 2 different people looked at it.

Fortunately for me, my next door neighbor is a mechanic. And he's a nice guy. He came over and looked at the truck and within a minute told me I had a hole in the condenser and all my freon had leaked out. The freon was burning off on the hot engine parts, and that was causing the smelly smoke. How did I get a hole in the condenser? I have not a clue. But there it is, about as big around as an inkpen and clear as day. He says I could have run over a stick or a rock or hit a bird...any of those things could do it. I don't remember hitting anything, but obviously I did.

My neighbor (whose shop is behind his house) took the truck. He went to town and got the part and had it fixed for me by 10:00 last night. He replaced the condenser, refilled the freon and charged the system, and, since he already was in there, changed the oil and filter and rotated the tires. Isn't that great?

So, even though I'm out a few hundred dollars that I didn't really have just laying around waiting to be spent, I didn't have to deal with the hassle of taking the car to an unknown mechanic. Not to mention finding a ride to and from the mechanic to drop off and pick up the truck. And I wasn't charged for the oil change and tire rotation except for the oil and filter, so I won't be spending that money here in a few weeks when it was due.

I guess that's not a bad deal, all things considered.