7/23/07

I had a thought while driving to the shop Saturday morning. I wish I'd had this thought last Saturday. Here’s what I should have thought last Saturday. Gregg wants a Seven, has a ¾ ton diesel truck, and owes me money. I'm about to go get a Locost in Houston (remember this is Saturday the 14^th I'm thinking this, not now), need a truck to do that, and want to get that debt “paid off.” I ought to see if he wants to make a deal. Well, he called me Saturday. He worked some three-way deal with his parents and uncle to get a car and trade it for a truck. So his ¾ ton is up for sale. I told him of my idea, which I should have had last week, and we agreed to talk. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell this in order. I mentioned heading to the shop. John was going to change the rear springs in his 510 and I was going to, I guess, stand around and look pretty. Oh, wait! Friday night the dude came to look at Mr. Wiggly. Ok, I got an e-mail from some dude wanting to come see Mr. Wiggly. We arranged to meet Friday after work. He showed up and was about to wet himself looking at the van. He is a Dodge van nut from New Orleans, living here now, who had lost three vans in hurricane Katrina. He was really excited about Mr. Wiggly because it is a short box with no windows. It is exactly what he wants. Now all he has to do is convince his wife, who’s holding the money, that Mr. Wiggly will be a much better daily driver than the V8 shit-box Ram pickup he’s currently driving. We’ll see where it goes at the end of the auction tonight. Ok, so now it is Saturday and I'm going to meet John at the shop and thinking about how I should have done the truck deal the week before. I stopped at O’Reilley’s for a Ford key chain and came out with $68.00 worth of receiver hitch, 2” trailer ball, locking receiver pin, and a pair of fish-eye mirrors. Oh, I got the key chain as well. I went to the shop. I saw Marty Smith and showed him Fifi. He seemed, well I guess indifferent is probably the most accurate description. He wasn’t excited, nor was he disappointed in me. Hmm, yes. Indifferent. I roll to the back and start installing my new stuff. John calls to say he’s not coming to the shop and asks if I'm seriously thinking about a rorty zorst. He needs to drop something off at Steve/John’s so I say, “Let’s go!” I go pick him up and we roll to the zorst shop. While waiting for him to do my zorst, I see that the Anglia John had told me about was in the back. I want it but that is another story. John and I walk across the street and eat some chicken at Church’s. It was quite tasty. They finally get Fifi up on the rack and build the zorst. Now she sounds like a truck. Mom is going to hate it but she can just deal. I may have another resonator installed to tone it down just a hair. We’ll see. I drop John off at home and head for Gregg's. We discuss the Seven/truck/debt situation and come up with an agreement. I'll cancel the debt and give him all of the stuff from Houston, minus the Zetec engine, and he’ll give me the ¾ ton, diesel, long bed, five-speed, extended cab, GMC truck. Oh, John had mentioned that his brother is looking for a diesel so I may have a buyer already. We shake on the deal and I leave with the title to the truck. On the way home, I stop at a truck outfitters to see about a camper shell or hard tonneau cover. I figured I could blame the new zorst noise on that. They had two guys working and they were both with customers. I waited for a bit and when one came free, or so I thought, I told him what I was looking for. He said he still had to finish up with the one customer but he’d be right with me. Well, the one customer was rather needy and took a long time. I just left. As I was backing out, the sales dude came running up. I didn’t get pissy with him, although I wanted to say, “If you want to sell stuff, get more sales people.” I did say I'd probably come back, but I probably won’t. I went home. Sunday was totally wasted with that thing at the church. I helped set up, made BBQ sandwiches, served sandwiches, mingled, saw my brother from Austin, let my niece move my sister’s truck from the south 40, and helped clean up. During that time, my left hip began to annoy me. It hurt like hell bending my leg to get into Fifi to leave. I collapsed in my chair and fell asleep. It took, literally, five minutes to get up from the chair because of the pain in my hip. I got it to loosen up finally, but it was pretty bad for a while. So, here we are on Monday. I drove Fifi to work again but will probably swap Matilda back into the rotation tonight. I took a quick gander at e-Bay for GMC stuff but when I remembered the lowering shackles that are on the way, I quit that. I'll probably hang on to Fifi and sell the GMC. Hopefully that won’t take too long. We’ll see.