2022-03-01 — Some Days You Just Know

I keep forgetting to mention (at least I think I keep forgetting) that I’ve been on and over the edge for much of the last two days. Why, I don’t know, but I just have been.

This morning, I think it might have taken a toll on the emotion center of my little body, as I was just… off today–lack of energy, not quite all there, lack of motivation…

I knew before I left to fix cars that I was dragging, and for no real reason that I can see other than that it appears when my body does this prolonged migrainy thing, my body, mind, and spirit all take a nose dive. So as I left to go fix cars this morning, I had the thought to just stay home.

But I didn’t. I went out and worked.

What was the result? The day went with cars about how I felt physically, emotionally, mentally, etc. The first car that I spent a while getting parts for turned out to be a job that I could have done but not done according to the standards I felt like it should have been done to (he used stop leak in his cooling system, which I only ever recommend as a last resort before you’re going to junk a car/engine. But he used it for a radiator, and so I felt like it would be best for him to have it flushed out at a shop with a flush machine.

So… I didn’t feel good about charging him because I basically said, “well, I can do it, but if it would be best done at a shop where they can do a proper flush.” So… instead we talked politics and life today and what all is going on in the world, and I told him about my non profit and modern alphabet projects. I tend to surprise people quite a bit when I talk about my non profit aspirations and even more when I talk about/explain what I’m doing with my alphabet stuff. I think they don’t expect a mechanic to be having those kinds of thoughts. It’s a pretty regular reaction, which gets a bit stronger still if they ask if I ever went to college, etc.

Kind of funny. I guess I’m not what people imagine in their minds a mechanic is.

Anyway, so… I didn’t charge him for going out, just directed him what to do, jacked up his truck and tightened his wheel because he’d not tightened the lug nuts sufficiently, and because of it, he ruined his rims and wheel studs. I didn’t charge him, just said whatever you were going to pay me, donate to Ukraine. Hopefully, he does.

Second job was a car that had a piece of debris from the truck in front of them fly into and crack their radiator. I was going to do the job until they got insurance companies involved. At that point, once again, I decided not to charge. I hadn’t really done anything for them other than show up and tell them what was wrong, which didn’t take very long at first, but then it sort of dragged out, so my first hour and a half or so of the day wasn’t paid Was good though on that one, too, I think. They’d just recently moved to Arkansas, and the gentleman in the truck that had the debris come out of it, had spent the last… 3 weeks? I forget how long… In the hospital after getting diagnosed with Guillan Barre syndrome (I forget how to spell that, and I don’t want to look it up right now. When my phonetic alphabet comes into play, I won’t have to look it up. I can say it, so I can spell it.

🤞

Third job was a car with a temperature overheat message. She was low on coolant, but there was absolutely no evidence as to why, which was really weird. There were no visible leaks at all. It passed the block test with flying colors. So, I topped it off, told her not to worry too much because there was no leak that was bad enough to be visible anywhere, and I directed her to keep coolant with here and check regularly to see if any issues continued.

Last car I did today was pretty much a repeat of the third. Overheat. Low on coolant. Only one place that looked like it could have been a leak, but there was nothing fresh at all–nothing. But there was some damage to the radiator cap and the inside of the radiator where the cap is supposed to seal, so that could have been the issue. I instructed them to buy a new radiator cap and replace the little hose that connects the radiator to the overflow bottle I also noticed the overflow bottle cap was cracked, and though not really important, I suggested they might change it.

That was pretty much it. I got home at a decent hour. I had plenty more I could have done, but… no. I’m not quite all there right now–fighting off the migrainy blues a bit, trying to get past this.

Oh, I spent some time working on cleaning the dirty Sentra. Between cigarette tar stains, burned carpets and other trim pieces, coffee stains all over and food spills from children, even crusty food leftovers on the headliner… it was pretty nasty.

I’m far from a neat freak, although I really really like it when things are clean: I just… let my priorities go elsewhere when time is limited. Anyway, far from a neat freak, but man… that was nasty.

I still don’t quite know what I’m going to do with the headliner, between the tar stains (funny the car doesn’t smell at all like smoke, which I’m grateful for) and the food and drink splatters… it’s… gonna be a lot of work to clean.

I may just sell as is. We’ll see. Hope I can get some decent price out of it, at least what I have financially in it. I might not be able to, though. 2021 was a year of rash purchases that have cost me five digits in lost money–expensive mistakes.

Well, folks, I’m gonna head to bed. It’s just shy of 10:30. Perhaps a little more sleep will help. I’ve not been sleeping well lately. Perhaps that has something to do with the migraines. Or maybe it’s a chicken and egg problem.

Goonight, all.

Lift the World.

~ stephen