8/27/12

Saturday was not such a good day.  John met me at the house so we could load my old 60” TV into Fifi for “disposal.”  I had arranged with George to give it to him for his grandkids to play video games and he was supposed to call Saturday afternoon/evening so we could deliver it.  Anyhoo, I'll get to that in a bit.  After John and I loaded the TV, I re-parked Fifi and hopped in Fiona to go to the shop.  There, we rolled Lil' Wiggly out and Fiona in so we could swap the steering wheel.  I really should have gone with my gut and just put in a different Hyundai wheel without radio and Blue Tool controls.  We could have just swapped the non-control fascia from a lesser model car onto the Genesis leather wheel and been done.  But no, I had to bow to peer-pressure and gopher the aftermarket wheel.  We fingered out how to remove the air bag without setting it off and got the stock wheel loose.  Unfortunately there was no way to hook up the horn.  We decided the contact must be inside the clock spring.  Here is where the project went totally “tits up.”  I disassembled the clock spring and found that there STILL wasn’t any way to hook up the horn.  While we ciphered and figgered on it, I called Manuel Hyundai to see how much a clock spring is.  Yeah, it WAS in fact destroyed by taking it apart.  A new clock spring would be $107.00 and they would have to order it.  We forged ahead.  We found the wire which feeds the horn and spliced in a ghetto wire.  Then, some dude John was selling parts to, showed up and began monopolizing John's time.  “That’s cool,” thought I.  “I’ve worked on cars by myself before.”  I kept at it.  However the project kept pissing me off at almost every turn.  When I'd had enough, I went out back to call Allen Samuel’s Hyundai to see if THEY had a clock spring.  I got the ASH operator and asked for Hyundai parts.  “Sure,” she says and “transfers” me… to a motherfucking recording telling me the hours of all the motherfucking departments of the motherfucking dealership!  When I finally got the parts department direct number, I tried to place that call.  The motherfucking i-Phone would have none of it.  The motherfucker got broken, then and there.  Of course the Otter Box did its job and protected the bastard from being thrown on the ground.  I ripped that some-bitch off and smashed the fucking phone into a pole several times finally throwing the piece of shit into the field.  John walked up, after dismissing the visitor I assume, and I said to him, “Don’t bother calling me, I don’t have a phone anymore.”  He asked what the situation with Fiona was.  “Fucked,” I said.  He then sat in the car and got to work finishing up the installation.  He got the wheel and horn button installed and had me connect the battery.  The horn worked and the car started… so we had THAT much going for us.  The air bag light was on on the dash, but we expected that.  What we didn’t expect was that the traction control warning light was on as well.  I was just about pissed off enough to say, “Push the fucker inside and take me home.  I'll go get a clock spring before next weekend.”  John, however, wanted to test drive the car to see if it WAS in fact locked into “low power traction control” mode.  See, the light which was on was the one which flashes when the car tries to go “Ass Out” and gets corrected by the electronic nannies by cutting power.  I heard him take off down the Dam Road, it sounded like full power from where I sat.  He came back and said, “Screw a Seven, I want one of these!”  He went on to ‘splain that while the light IS on, the traction control is not.  He got sideways and big smoky burnouts with it.  “I’ll say this,” he said, “If that IS low power, I wouldn’t want to drive it on FULL power!”  So, the car now has the electronic nannies disabled.  I'm going to have to catch any power slides myself.  I hope I don’t back the thing off the road into a tree or anything.  Oh well, we’ll see.  He put some vinyl patches over the offending lights on the dash and we cleaned up to leave.  We rolled Lil' Wiggly back in and went to Wasabi… as if you didn’t expect that.  From Wasabi we went to the AT&T store to look for me a “Dumb Phone.”  Unfortunately, since John and Samantha are still drinking the i-Phone Kool-Ade, I'm stuck with a data plan.  It was decided that I'd just reactivate an old Dingleberry I had at home.  I went home and got it then headed to Batteries Plus for a battery for it.  Half the traffic lights were off or flashing as I drove Camp Bowie Boulevard.  Batteries Plus had, ironically, no power.  They sold me a battery manually and I headed to Ridgmar Mall to that AT&T store.  There I got a new SIM card and the old Dingleberry reactivated.  I'd forgotten just how much I like Dingleberries.  Ok, I'd forgotten just how much I don’t HATE Dingleberries when compared to i-Phones.  Fortunately all of my contacts were still in this phone so I wasn’t as fucked as I feared.  I headed home.  At the Team Ranch Road exit, I followed a BMW off and up to the bridge.  He slowed WAY down for the turn and just as I was berating him for it, I saw a tiny little fuzz ball in the gutter.  I stopped and it ran under my car!  I got out and looked for it.  Fortunately another car stopped too and heard the kitten under my car.  We found it on top of the right rear tire!  We got it out and I took it home.  She was so friggin’ sweet and cute and cuddly… I wanted to keep her.  I let her nap on my chest for a while and cool off.  Mom was NOT happy.  I called the 24 hour vet, told them the story, and asked if they could check her for an RFID chip.  They said they could so I headed up there.  I was already choking up when I went inside with the precious little baby.  There was no chip but the tech said he had a good home for her if I didn’t want to keep her.  I perked up a little because I really can't take in another kitty right now.  Mom and Dolly weren’t too pleased with her presence, (Dolly is my old cat, by the way) so I asked what he meant.  He said his girlfriend would fall for her at first sight.  I thanked him and told him about my neurotic cat and 83 year old mother.  I ‘splained that I DID want to keep her, but just couldn’t do it.  I was crying my eyes out as I left her behind.  I miss her already.  I got home and locked myself in my room for a bit.  When I'd composed myself, I went and told mom the story.  She was relieved that I'd made that decision, but I'm still a bit torn up over it.  I can't e-mail the picture from the Dingleberry because I don’t have an e-mail set up in it yet.  I may text the pic to John again and see if HE can get it onto these integoogles somehow.  Well, I guess that’s enough for today.  I'll tell y'all about George and the Gun Show tomorrow.