4/28/08

I should have bet against the cars selling. Here’s how the weekend panned out. I drove Mr. Wiggly to the shop Friday evening so that he’d be off of the back patio in the morning when I went to leave for the swap meet at the butt crack of dawn Saturday. Gregg and I met and hooked up the trailer to his truck. We backed the trailer up to the Mustang and set to hooking up the come-along. We were very surprised that the car actually started rolling when we put the hunker to it. We got the rear tires up onto the trailer and ran out of cable pull. We set the transmission in “Park” and reset the come-along. We ran out of pull just before the front tires cleared the break-over on the dove-tail. We finally got the car centered above the axles and I tied it off while he began replacing the trailer’s lights. He got the new light units installed and rewired and we gave them a test. Brake lights? Check. Left turn signal? Check. Right turn signal? Check. Park lights? Nyet! We began tracing where the power was and wasn’t. It wasn’t all the way up to the truck’s trailer plug. I suggested tying in a jumper to one of the license plate lights. He did that and then the park lights worked. Huzzah! We stood around and talked for a while and at 2145 h I suggested we had better leave or we’d get locked in. I followed him to the Hulen light on Old Granbury road where I turned to go to the credit onion for some cash. I went home and went to bed knowing I'd be getting up in a few hours. Saturday morning at 0530 h, I rolled out of bed and got dressed. Mom was going to a church thing in Waco so she was up too. I filled an ice chest with a couple frozen water bottles, a few cold but still liquid water bottles, and two twelve-packs of Dr. Pepper. I really like that stuff, Forrest Gump had the right idea. I loaded the ice chest in Mr. Wiggly and headed for the speedway at about 0600 h. Now, if Juan doesn’t get in a hurry and is willing to trundle along at around 60 to 65 miles per hour, Mr. Wiggly really isn't that big of an ass-whip. But I am getting ahead of the story. I roll on up to the speedway and find registration. I sign us up for two spots and call to see where Gregg is. He answers the phone with that gravelly voice that tells me he has just woken up and says, “Yeah, I'm just about to walk out the door.” Ok, it is 0715 h and we were supposed to meet at 0700 h. I was a tad annoyed. I sit and wait because if I went in, he couldn’t. I had the two parking passes. I decide to go get a little gas. I head across the highway and put about 6 ½ gallons in the tank. I don’t want to give the new owner too much but I'd like to make it home “if” it doesn’t sell. I head back to the speedway and park by the entrance. He calls again at about 0745 h to say he’s finally made it to Wal-Mart for the shoe polish and is on his way. I tell him where I'm waiting and wait. He comes rolling in and I hop out to give him the parking pass. We head in. We find our spots and wriggle the trailer in. While he’s moving the truck I coerce Mr. Wiggly into the other spot. He returns and we put our information on the windows of the vehicles and start the “hanging out at the swap meet” process. Pretty soon we’re bored and decide to walk some isles. Pate is a huge swap meet. After walking about four or six isles, we head back to our spots to check in. No one is lining up to talk to us so we head out again after drinking something. We walk a few more isles and head back to the spots again. This goes on for quite a while. We eat at a vendor’s booth and check out more isles. By the time we head over to the car corral I'm just about beat. My pace is slowing down and I'm just about done with the place. We decide to leave the vehicles overnight so more people can not call us about them. Gregg started to complain about nausea about an hour before we left but I still felt ok. I was sunburned and my feet and legs were killing me, but I felt fine otherwise. We head out with the plan being he’d drop me off at home, I'd go help John in the morning at the shop, Gregg would pick me up around noon, we’d go back to the speedway, and then I'd drop Mr. Wiggly at the shop while picking up my car. It was a workable plan, until the nausea hit me. I had him pull over on I-35 where I hurked up what looked like two chunks of bratwurst and whatever is left of a Dr. Pepper when most of the water is removed. One quick hurl though and I was fine. I hopped back in the truck and he said, “Dude, I think I'm just going to take you to my house and hand you the Versa keys.” We did that. I drove Matilda home and was surprised at how much lighter, quicker, and more agile she felt than Darth Versa. I had to reassess my assessment of Darth Versa being more powerful due to (tee hee, I said doo-doo!) the different mods it has. Of course, it is probably that he has his tires inflated properly. I go home and crash out. I think I'm going to leave Sunday’s story for tomorrow since I'm approaching the end of another page.