gimme a brake!
The way with car problems is, they come up on you gradually so you don't really notice how bad they're getting until someone else tries to drive your car and comes back white-faced and shaking. With my first car it was the alignment; recently with this one it was the brakes. It's not that they stopped working, really, just that every time you applied them the car would shudder violently back and forth, as if the brakes were being applied unevenly. Which they were! Because the whole assembly was rusting away. I knew that, and I knew I needed to get them fixed, but I didn't have the time or the money until recently; now. finally, the repairs have been effected and I can slow my car like a civilized being again.
It's strange, though, to have the brakes not make any noise. Like I said I knew they were going, but I didn't realize how bad they were until I felt what it's like with them first. The only problem now is, without the accumstomed noise I've found myself, as I step on the brake pedal to come to a stop for example at the end of a highway exit, wondering if the brakes are in fact working at all. I guess I'll probably get used to it soon, though.