Car--very poorly explained.

So, when we returned from Las Vegas (there is a post coming about that, I just keep getting busy with other things) our car started making a funny noise. It sounded like it was running really dry. We tried putting more fluids in it, but it wasn't helping. Then, on Sunday night, Charles was taking a look at it when a pulley broke around the alternator (sorry, Charles explained to me what happened, but I couldn't explain it to anyone else if my life depended on it). Assuming it was the alternator, Charles spent yesterday morning calling around to find out prices for a new one (super expensive). Then, when he went to work on the car after work last night, he noticed that one of the gears (?) in in the alternator wouldn't spin like the others would. He took that off and found that that was the actual problem...that it was broken. So, he was able to fix the car for twenty two dollars--over one hundred dollars less then had been looking at when it was a broken alternator!