For me, breakdowns come in threes

They say bad news comes in threes.

So does mechanical failure.

I can attest to those more recently. One bad experience is enough, two is pushing it but the third can push you over the edge. Then, if there is a fourth ... where's the panic button?

I knew there was a slight noise under the hood of my car. So when the battery light came on and the temperature gauge went to hot, it was time to inspect.

I popped the hood and looked down into the darkness of a jam-packed engine compartment.

It's not like the old days when cars had miles of space so you could climb in and get to everything that needed fixing much easier.

I searched and searched with the flashlight until I discovered some funny stringy stuff floating around on the top of the engine and dangling from pulleys. The network of spaghetti turned out to be the fan belt that was frayed beyond recognition. In fact, it was so bad that the mechanics I took the car to finally had to take the alternator off just to make the repair.

And, of course, that disintegrated piece of strapping also once powered the water pump.

Duh!

After a new battery and two new belts, the car finally runs great again.

A couple of weeks before the car incident, while I was tucked safely in bed, I awoke to some strange noises coming from the bathroom.

Well, long story short, it was water running but nobody had turned it on. The flap in the tank failed and water was seeping - oh so slowly - so that every 15 minutes the float said, "Okay, guys, time to restock," and the water came on to fill the tank again and again.

Then, just after the car episode was resolved, I woke again in the middle of the night. I headed to the bathroom only to discover the floor was extremely warm. This was strange. Some little voices from somewhere said, "Go to the water heater." I did, which meant going outside at 3 a.m. and opening the exterior door to see what was going on. Wow, water was running everywhere.

Granted, 3 a.m. is not the ideal time to deal with anything of this nature, but we are talking hot water! There is no time to evaluate anything, just get the water turned off and the tank drained. So, I turned it all off, hooked up the hose to the valve and proceeded to drain the tank in the middle of the early-morning hours.

Draining the tank took some time and the thought longingly of sleep, but it gone through the hose with the hot water. One would think replacing a tank that is still under warranty would be a cinch. Not!

I made umpteen calls talking to mechanical voices until I finally reached an ignorant nerd who could tell me little or nothing.

Two days went by before I finally got a representative service person to check the hot water heater out and tell me if it was, in fact, an internal tank issue that was under warranty. He ordered the replacement.

The next day I was to call the store from where it was to be shipped. I did and these people knew nothing about it even after I finally got a real person to answer. We are now in the second week of being without hot water. We are heating dishwater on the stove and taking showers in my neighbor's studio apartment. Life is becoming tedious.

My nerves are beginning to fray like that old fan belt on my car.

After hammering information from the store, the manufacturer and the parent company, I am told it will be another two weeks until my new hot water heater arrives. It was back-ordered because of its dimensions and type - propane. Who would think propane could be such a problem? Looking at the compartment where this little wonder sits, it does have its limitations. There is adequate room to get my slim-line tank in, but trying to cram a more typically-sized water heater in is out of the question. What was somebody thinking when this little room was created?

The moral of this story - be thankful for a car that runs, a toilet that doesn't leak, and especially hot, running water because, trust me, life is miserable without these necessities.