11/2/11

Did I mention Dave Heeter’s van yet? If so, bear with me while I gas on about it again. See, one of the things John and I did Saturday, which I totally forgot the other day, was to take Dave a hood latch mechanism for Barbecue Bob. Remember, he bought Barbecue Bob from me? Hey, have I ever received any money from that deal? Hmm. Anyhoo, while at his house, I began to grok the 1964 Chevy van he has. Man, it is so friggin’ cool. I was jealous as hell when he bought it but this was the first time I'd seen it in person. As I was grokking it, I noticed the “For Sale” sign on the windshield. “Aw, crap!” I thought, “I’m going to wind up owning this.” His asking price is a bit steep but it turns out, according to John, he’s an intergoogle haggler. It was all I could do to NOT ask what his “Buddy Deal” price for me would be. Oh, I guess some more about the van itself might be in order. As I said, it is a 1964 model. Some previous owner has removed the “Six Shooter” and manual transmission and put in a 350 and auto-tragic. It has late ‘80s Camaro wheels, which I don’t hate but I think John does, dual exhaust, and a receiver hitch. On the minus side, in addition to the slush-box tranny, it is a four-wheel drum brake car. Fortunately, since it is a beam axle, I'd bet a lowering axle with discs is available, or at least wouldn’t be too tough to adapt to it. Also, said dual exhaust is not the newest thing on the vehicle. I'd probably have that replaced pretty soon as well. Ooh! Side Pipes! Hmm, what is that on the horizon, way out in front of my horse? Oh, it’s the cart! Anyhoo, I just sent Dave a text asking for the “Buddy Deal” price. He replied with two pictures of the thing before he sprayed it in primer. I wonder if he has some auto-reply thing on his phone when he gets a text with the word “van” in it. Nah, probably not. So, the point of this is, I'm trying to finger out where I'm going to get the money to buy this van. Well, I thought I might have a solution yesterday. Jeff, the dude who baby sits meetings for me on occasion, was here to… well, baby sit a meeting yesterday. He was giving me, what I thought was, a sob story about how they were a “one car family” since his step daughter was in a wreck in their other car. I thought about it later and here’s how the process went in my mind. “Hmm,” I thought, “I suppose I could offer to loan him Fifi until he finds something. Or I could tell him about Heeter’s van. Maybe if I did that, I could ask for ‘First Refusal’ rights when he decided to sell it. Screw that! Why don’t I sell him Fifi and buy the van myself? Hey, if I ask enough for Fifi I could get the van AND pay off that credit card! Wait, Fifi isn’t worth that much. What if I ‘threw in’ the motorcycle? Yeah, I'll ask him!” Ok, so once all that ran through my head, I texted John to see if he thought the van would be a suitable replacement for Fifi. He said that except for the lack of air conditioning, oh I forgot to put that on the “Minus List”. I guess, it would be an eminently suitable replacement for Fifi. He went on to point out that it wouldn’t be too tough to add. I agreed and told him the “Plan.” I then sent a text to the baby sitter asking if he’d be interested in the truck. He called me back almost immediately. We discussed it and he wasn’t too interested. John called later to ask if Fifi was dead to me. I told him about Jeff’s lack of interest in the deal and went on to say that while I was WILLING to sell Fifi to get the van, I didn’t necessarily WANT to sell Fifi. I'm not 100% sure where we left it off last night, but while typing this I've been in texting with both John and Dave about the van and stuff. Dave gave me his “Buddy Deal” price, which is probably not a bad number but still more than I have right now, and John has said he’ll do what he can once the Versa is paid off. Dave and I also discussed what I'd do with the van and I told him basically what I said up above about the zorst, manual tranny, and lowering axle. John’s biggest concern is “Can Tim own a Chevy?” I told him, “I have a Windows laptop and an i-Phone, why not go for a trifecta?” He sent back a “Raspberry” smiley face. :-p sort of thing. Which is just about how I feel about talking to y'all right now. I think I'll go play solitaire until lunchtime. Toodles.