2020-05-27 — Well… That Wasn’t My Water

That moment when… in the dark… driving home from your last job… you’re almost home… you reach for your water bottle because you know you’re about to go on your 28-minute run, and you need to hydrate a bit more before you go to take proper care of your body… when… suddenly… just a split-second too late, you realize you grabbed the wrong bottle…

Oops.

I mean, you hear stories of people in survival situations drinking their own urine to stay hydrated. And you know… I mean… I say I want to know what it’s like to experience what other people have to go through. Is it all just words?

Well, as you can imagine, I didn’t go for the full experience this time. I know, I know, I chickened out and didn’t let it stick around in there long enough to really get any kind of a feel for the flavor. I just spit it out, tried not to breathe I think, poured some actual water in my mouth, spit, and did that again, before finishing off the water. I had to chuckle. And you know what?

It’s not the first time!

So… how was your day? Drink any pee lately?

As for the rest of mine (my day, that is, not my pee), it was a middling kind of good day. I got up, got David on his way to the jobs he needed to go on. I spent time with Che, so she wouldn’t feel neglected (pulled a tick off her cheek). Then I waited around for the local Copart auction to start. There was a van I was interested in buying, a 15-passenger Ford E350 that would have been plenty big enough for my work van. I was the winning bidder, but it as “on approval,” meaning the seller had to approve my buying price.

My bid was $975, and the seller countered with $3600!!! Yeah, no… Poor person. They relisted it for next week. Probably not gonna sell for anywhere near that if mine was the top bid today at $975.

Anyway, so the van I was hoping to get is likely a no go, unfortunately (sorry, mom!). After that, I went and finally got that crazy 1992 Pathfinder starter put it. New bolts. New starter. In.

I got a bit wet (it was raining, and I was on my side and back, but it’s done! Four days later. The couple was super happy and gave me a tip. I was almost $300 cheaper than the last shop that did a starter job for them, and they had a remanufactured starter, and the one I put in was new.

It boggles my mind how some places stay in business. They charge soooooooo much. I mean, I get it, to a degree, but wow. They are probably charging list price for their parts which is neither DIY price nor commercial price. List price is usually crazy expensive. Way more than DIY, let alone commercial prices.

Anyway… after that, I put some headlights in for a lady who was about to start a road trip to Oregon. She wanted new LEDs in there instead of the less bright halogens that she had before. I told her I’d do it for $25, but it was so easy and took me all of like 4 minutes, that I was like, “don’t worry about it. It was super quick and easy.” But she said she wanted to give me the money anyway. That was nice of her.

I thought my day was done there, but one of the customers texted me saying that he did the repair that David told him to do, but the truck still wouldn’t start, so I went over there. David said it didn’t have spark, that the cap and rotor were bad, so he replaced those, and when I got there, I re-installed the cap and rotor, double checked the plug wire routing, and tested it or spark, and it had spark. The fuel pump was engaging, so I figured I’d test the actual pressure, but when I screwed in my pressure tester to test the fuel pressure, the little bit of liquid that came out onto my fingers smelled. like. water.

Poor guy.

He had a whole ton of crap in his gas tank. I got out about maybe a cup full to get an idea of what we were looking at, and it was a mixture of water, gas, and I think oil even. It was probably three quarters water in the test cup.

Yikes.

Cars don’t do so well when you try to run them on water.

The universe goes in clusters and cycles. It’s so weird. You never see something, and then boom, you see it a bunch, and then never again. I’d never seen someone destroy their brakes so badly that it ejected the pad backing plate. Then I saw it three times in three days. I’d only ever had a car backfire through the intake I think once for sure that I can recall. Now I’ve seen it three times in the last maybe week or so? I’ve never seen bad fuel/water in the tank be the cause of a no start or running badly, but it’s been three times in the last two weeks or so, including two with tons of water in their tanks. And like I mentioned Saturday, we do starters all the time, but five in one day like Saturday?

Clusters. I’m telling you. The universe is weird.

Anyway, after that, another customer called and said that something was wrong after David did the brake job. The grinding was still there. David was long home by then, so I ran over there, and David had accidentally put one of the pads on backwards. I think he was a bit embarrassed when I finally got a hold of him about it. It ground the new rotor super badly. It’s an $80 or so mistake. Cost of another set of pads and a rotor.

Oh well. Life goes on. Fortunately, the customer was super understanding. David will fix it tomorrow, or I will. We’ll see.

After that, I had a returning customer need a battery, and I drove 40 minutes away from home to put it in for him because he’d already been down for I guess three days. That one stung a little bit because he was unhappy with the price, so I let him set the price (that whole thing about wanting happy customers), and he chose $40 for my service call.

Ouch.

That’s less than half the normal service call price And this was 40 minutes out of my way, each way. Oh well. Happy customer. And it is what it is. I’m doing just fine. It doesn’t hurt me at all. I’ll be better next time about communicating the price before I get there. That’s my bad.

One of the guys at Autozone gave me two good batteries, so that was nice. I might use them for one of my trucks. I have so many good batteries lying around though. Nice of him, though.

Anyway, you pretty much know how the rest f the night went. Almost drank a rather odd beverage choice, went out on my run (took Che with me), came home and took a shower (I don’t usually shower very often because… well… I was graced with not very stinky sweat, so… it takes a few days to work up a negative aroma, even in the summer heat). Anyway, I took a shower because Che was almost certainly covered in chiggers, running around the dog’s yard and through the taller wet grass.

Don’t need chiggers making a meal out of me and leaving itchy goodness for me to deal with for the next three weeks.

Buggers, those critters.

But… who wants to hear whining?

#1. I’m grateful to have handled David’s off day really well (if you ask me, anyway).

#2. I’m grateful for old good friends. One of my good buddies from my college days messaged me saying that he’d started reading my journal/blog thing. It’s fun to hear that people are reading, and as you’re well aware, I hope it’s a benefit in some way shape or form to you an all who do.

#3. I’m grateful for the tips I received today, from the starter person and from the headlight bulb person. I appreciate being recognized for working hard and working hard to do a good job.

#4. I’m grateful to have a good work ethic. I know I work too much, but I’m grateful that I at least choose to work.

#5. I’m grateful for another day to learn and grow and progress. I did begin my post about work boundaries this morning. So that’s progress. It’s not done yet. It’s probably not even close, but I got started.

12:46. Time for sleepies. This little dude is done.

Good night, my lovelies. May you have the strength to do whatever it is you want to do in your life, as you are helping me to have the strength to do the things I want to do in mine.

And may you have sweet dreams.

Lift the World.

~ stephen