Isn’t it funny how certain phrases will trigger entire songs in your brain for hours on end? The phrase “Always look on the bright side of life” will have me humming the song from Life of Brian for hours after I hear it. My mind will helpfully insert footage from the old Monty Python film as well. It’s awesome.

Last week, I was on the phone for about an hour with Nissan customer service.

I passed the time and kept my sanity by painting a sunflower while we hashed out our issues.

Our 2006 Pathfinder’s been running fairly badly lately…

You know how there’s times you can tell something’s wrong with your car, but you hold off for a little bit because it just seems like it’s going to be really expensive? This was one of those things. Finally, we decided okay enough’s enough this baby needs to get looked at.

Once the dealership had a chance to look over the car, they let us know it was something like the radiator leaking coolant into the transmission, and that all of that would need to be replaced.

For over six thousand dollars.

Once Josh and I picked ourselves up from the floor, and made peace with fact that we were going to be shelling out that much for what could be the same as buying a used car… and we approved the repairs… Once all that happened, Josh took a second to google what had happened to our car, just to make sure the price wasn’t ridiculously over inflated.

He didn’t find anything hinky in the pricing.

But what he did find was a three year old class action lawsuit against the manufacturer for the exact same issue on the exact same car.

A few lengthy phone calls with Nissan customer service later, and they agreed to pay for just over half of the repairs.

We still ended up paying three grand to get our car fixed last week.

But oh, man. It could’ve been so much worse.

So. Always look on the bright side of life.

That’s your assignment this week. Report back! How’s it working out for you?

And do you need a little reminder to look on the bright side hanging on your wall?