Here it is 10:45 A.M. I'm giving a lot of thought to vacuuming the family room and calling it a day. It's a real good idea to quit while I'm ahead. In this case, ahead being, not hurt and nothing broken worse than it is now.
I seem to be getting a little better at doing things around the house. I have always been good at and enjoyed painting, instant gratification. Last week and over the week end I put in the new garbage disposal and built the speaker stands. A few years ago we could not find the type of bed frame we wanted so we designed and built one. I'm sort of thinking at the rate I am going, in a few years I should be a real good Mr. Fix-it. I'll be a bald, half deaf, toothless old man. I won't be able to see instructions or remember where I put anything but I will have the fix-it skills I can no longer use.
One thing I do know, no matter the problem, no matter the resource material, no matter the tools, I will never be able to fix things on cars. I also know I don't care. At this point if I can get by with whatever is broken that's just fine with me.
Wanda's father was a real "fix-it-guy." He could do things around the house as well as work on the car. He probably drove his last car a year or so too long. Like lots of grown kids of older parents we had the "give up the car" talk. Like lots of older parents of grown kids the talk was completely ignored. He didn't want to use public, or senior transportation. He thought giving up the car was giving up his mobility and independence. He also smoked a real stinky pipe and would go sit in the car, in his driveway, light up and smoke.
The folks lived in a pretty small town in Northern California. They lived on one side of "town." On the other was a bowling alley. Curt would take off, drive down to the lanes, smoke his pipe and B.S. with the guys. Leaving the lanes one day he bumped into a parked car, doing no damage, he took off. He did knock a front turn signal lens off his car. An area sheriff was parked in the lot and saw the accident. He knew Curt and was kind enough to retrieve the lens and bring it to the house. Us kids couldn't convince him to give up the car. The sheriff deputy did.
I have been driving a red, four door, 1991 Plymouth Acclaim for seven or eight years now. It's transportation. It gets me where I need to go. It's really ugly and it's missing a front turn signal lens. It also has a drivers window that will not roll down. I tried to fix it about an hour ago.
IS there anything that can't be found on the Internet? Honestly, I don't think I have ever come up blank.I Googled "how to fix a car window that falls down" and got lots of information. I took things apart and I took things off. Eventually I was able to confirm what I thought, the car window would not roll down. I couldn't fix it but I could watch it not work. I think I'll leave the door panel off for the summer.
While I was trying to fix the car I started thinking about my first car. It was a black 1955 Ford. I paid a hundred bucks for the car and it got me around for a couple of years. It was a three speed, or as we used to say (this is really embarrassing) "three on the tree" which means a stick shift on the steering column. It had a radio and a heater and one door that worked. I had to tie the passenger door shut. This was especially annoying when I needed to drive my mother to or from her job. Dorothy didn't drive (Wanda, didn't that reminded you of Gary doesn't lie?).
The story was, my mother learned to drive as a young adult. I have no idea her age but pretty sure she had my older brother at the time. She was out running her errands and somehow obtained a long scratch on the passenger side of the car. My dad was very upset about this. I heard Dorothy threw the car keys at him and never drove a car again. Honestly, I don't know if that's true but it is a good story.
I got my first car when I was 15. I got my drivers license on my sixteenth birthday. I got my first ticket while driving home from the drivers license place, on my sixteenth birthday. Honestly, that's a true story. I did not make a complete stop at one of the octagonal red signs that read STOP. I lost my driving privileges for thirty days but was allowed to drive mother to work and back. Since the passenger door was tied shut I would stop the car, get out and let her "scooch" out my side. Although that was a pain in the ass the Ford was a good car, up until the time my middle brother ran it out of oil.
It was really my fault. I had been working on the engine (probably where all the incompetence began) early in the day. I must have missed a plug or bolt or something. He borrowed it that evening and on the way to his destination all the oil leaked out of the car. It was towed home and never ran again. I replaced it with a 1957 Buick Special that probably outweighed a WW2 tank.
On the way to the store today I noticed the Shell station went over four bucks a gallon. I had a personnel charge account at a Shell station across from my high school. My dad used to cut the owners hair, a guy named, Barney. I would go in there with the Buick once or twice a week for gas, always two or three dollars worth. Last week Wanda and I put around seventy dollars worth of gas in the two cars. I'm not complaining. I have a computer with Skype and I know how to text, I don't need to drive, maybe I should take up pipe smoking?
She said, he heard:
She said, "I'm looking at office e -mail."
He heard, "I'm licking it off the e-mail"
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