2020-04-21 — Want a Job? 🙃

I’m swamped.

Tax returns are coming in. Stimulus checks, too; and everyone wants their cars fixed!!!

It’s such a good problem to have.

But… I did go a bit crazy today. 🙃 I probably got called every 5 to 10 minutes during my second job, and… well… what can you do?

Oh! You’d be so proud of me! I started writing at 7:41 today!!!

(I probably shouldn’t tell you that starting at 7:41 happened to be while I was on my way to my last job of the day and that it’s actually after 10 now [10:16 to be precise]). 😎

Anyway, it’s been an absolutely nutty day. I only did three cars myself, but I’ve been on the phone all day. These are the days when I wish I had somebody sitting at home who knew cars well enough to give quotes accurately, order parts, answer questions, etc., so I can just work. These days actually do cost me money because I spend time doing things that pay me nothing (answering calls, ordering parts, giving quotes, etc.) instead of diagnosing/fixing cars.

But… c’est la vie.

Want a job? 😁

Speaking of which, my nephew went with me for part of the day today. That was cool. He’s been wanting to learn a bit about cars and is starting at the very begining. He picked an interesting day to start, too. The first car was supposed to be one the was starting and dying, but the battery was toast, so it was a straight no start at first. So we used my jump box to test it, and after running it for probably 20 seconds, AC refrigerant would blow violently from… somewhere. I never did figure out where. You’d think it would be easy to see it bursting out, but it’s not the best thing to be next to it while it’s blowing everywhere, so I’d only get a few looks before I had to get clear of the toxic cloud.

Fortunately, I was at least able to figure out that the AC compressor pulley was binding up, and that was the reason it wasn’t able to stay running at idle–too much resistance against the engine trying to turn.

The next car… poor peeps. 🙁 I got there, and the dipstick was covered in sludge. Likely head gasket. Then tried to turn it on, but it made an awful racket… sounded like the timing chain was flapping around or something. Pulled the valve cover. Chain was fine. Went down underneath and found that the starter was loose! Flopping around a bit.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the problem either, though. Tightened up the starter. Same problem. Pulled the starter and tested it–fine.

Hmmm…

Then I went to manually crank the engine, and… Wouldn’t you know it. It was seized up. I couldn’t turn it at all.

New motor folks. 😬

I hate having to give news like that to other people. It’s awful.

On a happier note, I was at least able to walk them through how to connect their fan to an ignition wire in their other car, so they could at least have a working fan for the moment and wouldn’t have to pay me to diagnose it when they just had to pay to find out that their other car is completely blown to bits.

After that, my nephew and I went to eat (40 chicken nuggets and a bunch of sweet and sour sauce for $5 from Burger King. Yee haw!

We parked our butts at my home Autozone store in the shade outside, ate our fill, ran some errands inside, and then I took my nephew home.

While home, I spent an hour or so trying to get things scheduled for the billions of people who’d called throughout the day. Then another call came in, and I decided to take it. I headed back out to a no crank, no start car. They’d been trying to do some of their own repairs and had put in a new throttle body, and then suddenly it wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t even crank. So went out there, checked a million things, and finally was able to diagnose it as an unrecognized key, and guess what? The guy was like, oh yeah! I changed the keyfob out yesterday!

Well… I wish I’d known that an hour before, but his car is running now, and he’s happy, and I was happy, and now here I am at the end of another day. It’s been a good day. Of course.

So… now it’s 10:28 p.m., which means… Yup! Time for gratitude!

#1. My sweet teeth are still on ice! (although sweet and sour sauce is pretty sweet). No candy. No ice cream. …No vegetables either. 🙃 Yeah… I’m getting the bad removed… Still gotta get the good added 😁. Grateful that at least my self discipline is returning a little bit. I used to be pretty darn strong, and then I became a flabby-willed pudding pop. Don’t ask me what that is. Those are just the words that came to my mind.

#2. I’m grateful that I was able to figure out all three cars today. I get most things figured out, but here and there I can’t figure things out, so I waste my time (I don’t charge when I can’t figure things out). Today… at least I got paid for everything.

#3. I’m grateful that the Durango seems to be doing just fine.

#4. I’m grateful to be able to come home to a beautiful country home, surrounded by forest and critters, and freshly mowed grass (my mom said about two acres of grass to mow), and just lovely weather. It’s soooooo nice. I love it.

#5. I’m grateful to be able to provide jobs for people, so they can earn income as well. I wish I could provide more. I put another ad out for people to hire. Hopefully, it garners some attention, and I can hire another employee. I’m still waiting for Bobby. Hopefully, he’ll be back in a week or three..

I’ve gotten away from doing my top three most important list. I’m gonna do that tonight before I go to bed. I need to get on that, so the most important things are getting done. My to-do list could stretch to the moon and back, so I can’t get lost in the bajillions of things. Gotta stay on the highest priorities.

Also, I would love to find a place of my own to live. But why? To satisfy my pride? That would be part of it. I certainly want to have my own place because I just I want my home to be mine, but there is another part of me that’s a little bit embarrassed to be living with my mother. But I’ve got a good arrangement here. I love it here. I’m able to be a help to my mom being here (I’d say my aged mother, but she has more energy and health than I do, so… yeah… I can’t say I take care of my mom because she probably does more to take care of me than I do of her). I’m able to save money faster here than if I had my own place. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement here. I save her money. Being here saves me money.

So the only real problems are the “I just want my own place so that it’s actually mine” and the “what will other people think” problems, and you know what? With the former, I just need to be patient… and with the latter, if they think less of me, or if the women don’t want to date me because I live in the same house as my mother, well, that actually helps me out. They can self select right on down the road, and I’ll know they’re not the women for me anyway.

Well, y’all. It’s been a pleasure. I need to go get a drink and get more grub in the belly before my body throws a conniption.

Lift the world.

~ s