When I came out of the bank on my way into work, I noticed a puddle of antifreeze under my car.
I opened the hood and traced the leak to the end of a heater hose connected to the heater core.
On every other car I've owned, this is a 5 minute repair; cut off the end of the hose with the hole in it and remount.
However, on my current vehicle (1992 Olds Cutlass Ciera 3.3L), it's a fucking nightmare due to wiring harnesses and the power steering pump blocking off easy access to the firewall where the hoses connect to the core.
To make a long story short, I managed to get the hose off after about a half an hour of dicking around in 25°F weather, in the meantime managing to numb my fingers, bruise my arms and bleed all over the place (I'm on Coumadin because of my artificial heart valve, so I bleed easily) while doing so.
While I'm literally wrestling around with the clamp trying to tighten it in such a cramped environment, a total stranger offers to finish up tightening the clamp.
Fifteen minutes later, he finally gets it tight and offers me a ride to the nearest auto parts store to buy antifreeze (I lost about half a gallon).
Naturally I take him up on it.
On the way there, he offers to buy it for me if I didn't have the money.
I declined his offer, and thanked him anyway, as I'd just cashed my check and had some money.
I would have been late for work, so I just called in and went home after I finished filling up the radiator.
I like to think of this as positive Karma coming back to me after I helped a family stuck on US 41 a few years ago with their radiator hose problem.
I wound up installing it (a lower radiator hose) for them because none of them had any idea how to do it, but I didn't mind doing so because I figured that someday I'd be the one needing help.
Today was that day.
