Thankfully, with some calm-down help from Warphammer and a few phone calls from one of the employees, I managed to get a tow to a house. Not my house, which was still 35 miles away, mind; to the house of Javier[*2], a local mechanic. As all the garages were closed that day, and I needed Meefer moving if possible, that night, I was prepared to take the risk of putting things in the hands of a guy working out of his backyard.
He rapidly concurred with the Alternator diagnosis; he removed said alternator and we took it to AutoZone in his beat-up Toyota with the Flag of Panama dangling from the rear-view mirror. They did a test, confirmed that the 5-month-old alternator was shot (And my regular mechanic who sold me it will hear about this...), and I bought a new one. Or a 'remanufactured' one, since that's what they had.
Thankfully this one worked- Javier did rapid and excllent work, while telling me of his three years in jail for selling drugs. "The worst times. Glad that's behind me.", he relayed, in his decent-enough English.. A quick juant tot he ATm to get enoguh cash to settle the bill, and I'm on my way.
So, while I was in the hands of good, capable people after the breakdown: this, plus computer trouble. (Spontaneous reboots happening almost every time after 20-30 minutes now. I'd think it's overheating but everthing's whirring along nicely it seems.) have made for a very rough day. and I'll only manage abotu 3 hours of sleep tonight, then be off to work, THEN be driving to FurFright. If I'm acting like a zombie there this weekend, it won;t be thematic, it'll be exhaustion.
--Chi
[*1] Not the four-year public university's real name.
[*2] Not his real name out of politeness, since I'm mentioning he was a felon.