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LY/MI

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and

and Muscular Dystrophy Association.
 

 

 

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Trip Reports at the Lodge

Copyright © 2004, 2005 Robin Costello. All rights reserved.

Back Stories
Forgive Me Mechanic, for I Have Sinned

Have you ever heard the expression ‘smart mouth’? When I was a kid and said something out-of-line or sarcastic, my mother would say “Watch that smart mouth”.

I would OF COURSE pucker my lips out and try to look at my mouth, usually got a smack in the head for it.

I did it a lot, I was a slow learner.

Or I had brain damage from all the smacks in the head.

That is my excuse for this story; my mother gave me brain damage.

I pulled out of my driveway on my way to work. I drove about 200 feet from my house when the front end of my truck was wobbling and making all kinds of ‘not-so-good’ noises. I pulled over and jumped out hoping it wasn’t the caliper thing or something equally stupid.

It wasn’t, I had a flat tire.

Now, I can change a flat tire, it is a requirement when you have four brothers who force you into learning such things. The problem is I don’t know how to change a tire when I DON’T HAVE A JACK.

I called my boss to tell him I was going to be late and I didn’t have a jack, so I had to wait for Del or AAA who ever showed up first. He said “What do you mean you don’t have a jack?”

I mean ‘I lack a jack’

‘I’m jackless’

‘I’m unjackable’

‘No habla jackola’

English is the only language I know, so if he didn’t understand me when I said ‘I don’t have a jack’ well, we were both screwed.

I didn’t look to see if the truck came with a jack when I bought it. I guess my only excuse is I was distracted by the luggage rack and forgot to check for a jack.

I guess it’s too late for the ‘lemon law’ to do me any good now.

I didn’t have enough gas to sit in the truck with the heat on. While I was debating on whether or not to drive the truck back into my driveway, a car pulled over, the guy got out and asked “Got a flat?”

“No,” I said, “All the tires started out like this one, but as I was driving along, the other three just blew up.” (Thanks Bill, that WAS funny.)

Anyway, my ‘smart mouth’ didn’t seem so smart to me, it had just lost me a chance at a jack.

My response wasn’t very nice and if that was going to be my attitude, I deserved to stand outside in the cold. I was getting pretty sick of the cold and could feel my ears so I drove the truck back into the driveway.

You should never be able to feel your ears.

That would be my first mechanical sin. Driving the truck on a rim.

Del beat AAA to our house and he changed my tire for me. Not before the ‘husband questioning’ because I drove it home.

“Didn’t you notice the truck leaning way over to that side?” He asked.

Oh yeah, just thought maybe my seat broke.
“No honey.”

“You drove home on the rim?” He asked.

No, carried it home on my back.
“Yes honey.”

“Do you know you could have bent the rim?” He asked.

Do you know that it is below zero outside and I have enormous ears?
“Sorry honey.”

I didn’t say any of these things to him, I did appreciate him changing it for me, and so I just held my head down in wife shame.

So I ended up working on a spare tire for three nights in a row for a mileage grand total of 323 miles. Eventually the spare tire slipped my mind.

That would be my second mechanical sin. Spare tires are meant to get you to a real tire.

Having completely forgotten about the spare tire, I noticed my truck wouldn’t go over 45 mph. At 45mph the truck would shake and pulled to the right really hard and lose speed.

I told a few people at work and they thought I had water in my gas tank. Water in your gas tank is a benefit of living in Maine, everyone has it and everyone blames all car problems on water in the gas tank in the winter.

Side note *Mainers are nodding there heads right now.*

They told me to put in two bottles of dry gas and fill the tank. I did, three times totaling 6 bottles of dry gas and three tanks of gas. I figured I must have had A LOT of water in there.

That would be my third mechanical sin. Asking the guys at work and not asking Del. He knew I had a spare tire on.

Super Bowl night while I was at work I broke my truck 30 minutes before kick off and got to spend an hour on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck.

One of the guys from work rushed out to get the food sitting on my front seat. I scared him half to death.

I think I might have come close to being punched in the head by him.

See, what happened was I was driving along at about 45 miles an hour heading back to the college for the 10th time in a row.

College kids spend their book money on pizza, I'm sure of it.

Anyway, I'm cruising' along, singing along with Madonna and celebrating our virginity when something in the front of the truck broke.

See, this is why I don't speed. I own a '84 Mustang 5.0 and have no idea how fast it will go. Stuff only breaks when you are using it.

I want to live.

When whatever it was broke the truck took a hard right at the same time, causing me to lose control for a second and then it started pouring out black smoke.

I still wanted to live.

I got the truck on the side of the road, threw it in park, popped the hood and shut it off.

Madonna was going to have to celebrate without me.

I looked under the hood and saw a lot of smoke but no fire. Not that there was a whole lot I could have done if it HAD been on fire other than observe it. That’s all I can do under a hood.

I case anyone had asked I could have supplied an answer. I was being useful in a small way.

I made phone calls and people were on their way. They would want to know what I knew about visible flames.

Sitting in the truck wasn't an option, I was now afraid of the stupid thing because it tried to kill me and I wasn't completely sure that was over trying to kill me YET so I stood in front of it.

Standing in front of the truck made people pull over to see if I had any free food because they saw me break down.

That started to scare me.

That drove me into the woods to hide.

That is where I jumped out of when the guy from work got there.

That is how I almost got punched in the head.

Now I have to use Del's truck for work. I have trouble with Del's truck because it’s a king cab with a 75 foot bed on it.

Okay maybe not 75 feet. But it is definitely longer than it appears.

The last time I had to use his truck I almost knocked over a light post backing out of dunkin doughnuts and I flattened someone’s mailbox backing out of a driveway.

But it turned out okay because it was one of those fancy Rubbermaid mailboxes, popped right back into shape. It even made a lovely *Blonk* sound when it popped back into shape.

I thought Tupperware burped? I guess that’s not important.

It turns out that when you drive an all-wheel drive vehicle, it is imperative that all 4 tires are the SAME size. I broke my trans axel housing. All I know about that is its ten times more expensive than a real tire.

Forgive me mechanic, for I have sinned. Could we set up a payment plan?

The good side of all of this is I DO NOT have a drop of water in my gas tank.
 

Love Ya / Mean It and BadShoe.com Pins

Tony, Delaney, Connor - Love Ya / Mean It

Robin & Del, Kimball & Bennet (aka Delswife & Scuba Steve, Zurgswife & Zurg) are proud to announce two unique limited edition trading pins to benefit research to help find cures for Juvenile Diabetes and Muscular Dystrophy.

We love going to Disney World and writing funny trip reports, after all it is how we became friends.  We care just as much or more about helping these two great causes. All the profits from pin sales will go to JDRF and MDA because, well, Robin thought it would be a fun idea.

So if you enjoy the trip reports please chip in and buy a pin or two. Pins are $10.00 each including shipping and handling (North America.) Send an email to pins@badshoe.com with how many pins you would like and we will get the pins rolling.

If you feel inspired click either MDA or JDRF's logo or both and make additional contributions.