9/23/08

I wonder why the second time I said “Mustang Park” yesterday the font changed. I didn’t do it intentionally. Is Spiderman doing stuff like that to try and freak me out? Hmm, interesting. I don’t know that I'd put it past him. He did post a rant for me in “Wingdings” once, but that might have been an accident. Anyhoo, I said I'd tell y'all about Sunday’s activities. While hooning on Saturday, well, not while actually honing because I'd never hear the phone, in fact I did miss a call while hooning… let me start over. At some point Saturday, I heard from John telling me that he might be meeting Aaron at the shop Sunday. I said, “Cool,” and requested he call when they were headed that way. Well, Sunday morning I get said call. I head for the shop and find Aaron swapping the wheels from John’s Corolla onto his B-210. I think I remember John saying something about Aaron buying wheels so I don’t freak out. Aaron doesn’t freak out when I arrive so either he’s that cold a burglar or it really was above board. I suppose I could have done a little more due diligence and asked, or called John, but I'm a little too trusting. Anyhoo, John eventually arrives and also doesn’t freak out so it appears as though it really was a prearranged deal. Somehow it is relayed to me that Aaron is also there to buy and take the Corolla with him. Of course this means John and I need to make it drivable. Well, it meant it needed to be made drivable; whether I'm actually part of the equation is moo because I just jumped in feet first. We had replaced the stock carburetor with a new Weber 32/36 but hadn’t gotten the throttle to work properly. I got cracking on that. I tried turning the throttle cable bracket around but that didn’t work. Finally I removed the pulley wheel arm thingy from the carburetor and gave it a bend. When reinstalled, the throttle worked. We sent Aaron to the gas station for, wait for it, gas while we were fiddling. He came back to report that the “new” tires rubbed a bit on the B-210. John took a baseball bat to the rear fenders and rolled the lip out of the way. As an aside, that car just gets better every time it shows up at the shop. We move back to the Corolla and eventually get it fired up and running. We send Aaron back to the gas station again, this time in the Corolla, to fill the tank and see how the thing drove. I don’t remember what John and I talked about/did while Aaron was gone this time. I'm pretty sure we didn’t go into suspended animation while waiting but I sure as hell don’t remember that stretch of time. Anyhoo, Aaron returns and reports that the clutch is slipping badly. It is decided that the Corolla won’t be going with Aaron and that if no one “rescues” it from John it will go to the crusher. We’ll keep the Weber of course. I suggested we try to drive the thing to the scrap yard because I think I'd get some perverse joy out of seeing a running car just get picked up and dropped into the crusher. John poo-pooed that because of the clutch. I said we could drive it as far as it would go and drag it with a tow rope the rest of the way. I haven’t heard his final answer on that “plan.” Anyhoo, we “sell” Aaron some fender mirrors and a chin spoiler then send him on his way. We go to Benito’s. I debate going back to the shop and pulling Shi-Chi out for a hoon but decide against it and go home. So there you have it. I'm taking tomorrow off to go to the dentist and renew the license plates on Shi-Chi and the trailer. Hopefully my “SHICHI” plates will arrive before then and I can get that done too. We’ll see.