2023-03-17 — Phantoms and… Crap. 😅

Phew! Long day!

I’m just now heading home, and it’s after 11:30 p.m. it’s been a long day today, not a bad day, just a long one.

I headed out pretty much first thing this morning after getting up, as per usual lately.

Though I had a really busy day, for some reason, I didn’t feel rushed. That was nice. 🙂

The first job was a 2016 Chevrolet spark that needed a new transmission control module and a new O2 sensor. They had had somebody come out to try and replace the transmission control module, but that person realized very quickly that he was in over his head. The funny thing, though, is that it was only three screws. He had started taking apart things in the engine bay, taking the battery out, disconnecting the ECM, removing the battery tray, etc before giving up. Had he actually known where the transmission control module was, he could have had it done in 10 minutes, less even.

Anyway, I quickly swapped out the TCM and O2 sensor, waited for the gentleman to get back so that I could show him everything, put back all the parts that were disconnected by the person who tried to fix it but didn’t know what he was doing, and then headed off to the next job.

The next job was a 2006 Ford mustang that supposedly needed brakes, but when I got there, I checked all four wheels, and the pad thickness was just fine on all of them, basically brand new on the rear. We took it out for a test drive, but we weren’t able to reproduce the sounds that she was concerned about. She said she didn’t drive the car as much as she used to, letting it sit several days in a row sometimes, and I think that’s probably her problem. Here in Arkansas, with all the humidity and wet weather, if you drive on a wet day, or just because of the humidity over longer. Of time, you can get rest on the rotors. The first time you drive the car after the rotors resting a little bit, you get a grinding sound for the first several times you break until the rest gets ground off.

Anyway, I gave her a really big discount and headed off to the next job.

The next job was a 2003 Suzuki Grand Vitara. Back 8 months ago or so, we gone out there because the shifter wouldn’t come out of park. We had found that the fuse that controls the brakes switch was blown, so we replaced the fuse, gave them a couple of extra fuses, taught them how to bypass the shift lock so that even if the fuse blew or something else happened they could still get the car started in drive and be able to drive where they needed to go, but they had forgotten which fuse it was, and they had forgotten how to bypass the shift lock.

So I went back out there, replace the blown fuse again, gave him a couple more fuses for the future, taught him how to bypass the shift lock, and was on my way. We talked about chasing down the reason why it keeps blowing fuses, but with 8 months between the time it blew last time and this time, and the potential challenge of chasing down the wiring where the short is that’s causing it to fry, it’s just a lot easier to grab a pair of pliers, pull out the blown fuse, slap another one in, and be on your way. Literally about 60 seconds, and you’re done, if not fewer.

He was also having an issue with his other car, so I scanned it, found that it had a likely stuck open thermostat, and he asked me to set an appointment for him to get it fixed next week.

I gave him a big discount as well, and then I had a first for my. It’s… maybe a little TMI first, but life is real and ain’t always pretty.

So earlier in the day, I suddenly had to go to the bathroom, number two. Being vegan, it’s completely normal to go from not having to go to the bathroom at all, to needing a bathroom nearby fairly quickly.

Totally normal.

But earlier in the day, when I had to go to the bathroom, it seemed to be a good bit more forceful than usual, necessitating a bathroom close by a little quicker than usual.

Okay, fine, whatever.

But right after I finished doing the job for the guy with the Suzuki, he drove away, and I had to go to the bathroom so badly and so quickly that I didn’t have time to find a bathroom. I went over to my van, doing my best to keep everything in my bowels, grabbed an empty 32 oz yogurt container, hopped in the back of my van, dropped my drawers, and… well… I’m sure you can picture the rest.

First time in my life I’ve had to let the diarrhea fly into a little container.

😅

Fortunately, no spills, no messes. I got it all in the yogurt container like a world class diarrhea targeting event.

Oh yeah! 🥳

😅

Soooooo… from there, I headed over to Lowe’s because the next job I was going to do needed some handyman fixing and not really a mechanic.

The job was scheduled for tomorrow, but I had an hour and a half between when I finished the Suzuki and the next appointment that I had to go to, so I went over to Lowe’s, found some wire mesh that was quarter-inch squares, which would be perfect for the job I needed to do. I got in touch with the guy and asked him if he had time for me to swing by right now, and he said he was home, so I decided to squeeze that job in today instead of waiting until tomorrow.

Something pretty… Pretty troubling happened while checking myself out in the self-checkout. I had four things to purchase. Three for the business, and one for personal. For the business, I had two 5 gallon buckets that I put in my van, one for trash, and one for recycle, and I had the wire mesh that I was buying for the next job.

So I scan the wire mesh, and then I scanned two buckets, and then I stick my credit card in the machine to pay, and while it’s in the process of being accepted, I realize that a phantom purchase is on my ticket!!!

This was self-checkout, so there was no way that the checker had accidentally grabbed something that I hadn’t purchased. Simply put, the self-check machine randomly added a $72 item to my list in between the mesh and the buckets. 😶😶😶

What?!?!

I immediately called the young lady over who was in charge of the self-checkout area, showed her what happened, and scratching her head, she sent me over to customer service to get a refund.

Customer service looked at my ticket, looked at what I had purchased, and tried to figure out what the thing was that had been randomly added. She said that it was coming up in her system as some kind of display model something or other. She had no idea what it even was.

What was also weird was that whatever it was, on the receipt, it was actually offset from my other purchases. All the others were in the same column but this phantom edition that I never scanned and that just appeared on my transaction in between the other items I scanned was in a column to the left on the receipt, like it wasn’t even a part of everything.

Yeah…

Wonder how many people have had that happen and had no idea they were getting ripped off. I mean… wow!

On a positive note, I’m glad they were able to refund it so quickly, and I’m excited for the two buckets that I bought! Did I mention that I’m really really liking this old beater van? It’s 25 plus years old, but it’s easily my favorite van, hands down. I’ve got room for two full five gallon buckets up in the cabin area with me. I’ve got room for all of my bolts and everything on the ground. I’ve got room for my bin of parts and been of food. All of that in the cabin and then with all the shelving, I have so much space in the back that I almost don’t know what to do with myself! Everything has a place to go that doesn’t have to be stacked on top of something else!!!

It’s fantastic! 😊

Almost makes me want to keep being a mechanic just because it’s so much less of a headache now. 🙃

Not really, though. Not going to keep staying a mechanic.

Anyway, the fourth job was a 2016 Dodge ram 2500 diesel that has been doing battle with the neighborhood squirrels and… not winning.

What’s worse is that the dealership charged him 1300 to replace the air intake boot and to reset the code. Resetting the code takes all of 4 minutes, if that. And the air intake boot was too clamps. With the part present, I easily could have done everything in 10 minutes. They charged him 1300 dollars.

I can’t stand greedy, dishonest, selfish shops.

Give us all a bad name.

What I thought was going to be an hour-long project squirrel proofing the insides of his engine bay that we’re getting chewed on turned into almost 4 hours. It was an absolute nightmare, but in the end, I managed to squirrel proof the parts of the engine that he was most concerned about. Wrapping wire mesh around the parts, sewing them together with wire so that they would stay in place even if the squirrels chewed through the zip ties that were holding things together.

I knocked like $100 off the price because I didn’t want him to be spending $500 just to squirrel proof his truck, but it did take quite a long time. I knocked $100 off, and he gave me a $15 tip, so that was nice.

By that time it was something like 6:30 and starting to get dark. The next job was a 2013 Hyundai Elantra that she said was sputtering. Turns out she had a bad ignition coil, something she suspected, so she had already purchased for ignition coils. I replaced all four because she didn’t want to just replace the one that was bad, and I had a great conversation with one of my family members the entire time. I found out that that particular family member is considering moving away from suburbia out to the beautiful country. I certainly understand that. I left Utah because I couldn’t deal with the smog, and the rat race, and the crowded everything everywhere all the time feeling, not to mention other reasons that made staying in Utah painful.

Car number 6 was a 2022 Hyundai sonata that was dead after the owner had gone to India for a month or so. I didn’t bother buying a battery since the car was only a year old, so I just went over there and spent 30 or 40 minutes charging up the battery enough to have it be able to charge itself without risking damage to the alternator. I gave him instructions to go on a joyride or something, whatever he wanted to do, but to make sure that he left the car running for at least another 30 minutes. Then I told him to start it first thing in the morning, if he had any problems, I would return for free and recharge the battery. He should be fine, but that at least gives him some peace of mind.

Finally, I left that job close to 10:00, and I headed to the last job of the night. The last one was a 2003 Ford mustang Mach 1 that needed the brakes bled. I got there, hooked up some bleeding hoses to the master cylinder, as there was a decent chance he hadn’t gotten air in the lines, just in the master cylinder, blood the master cylinder, and everything seemed totally fine. But as he started to pull away, I saw a whole puddle of brake fluid underneath the car. I had him stop the car, and I started checking, and I realized that one of the lines that you had put in the master cylinder was leaking. I started to tighten it, noticing that it was really loose, but it wouldn’t tighten. It just kept turning and turning and turning and turning.

Stripped.

Ugh.

I explained to him what he needed to do to fix it, and it was totally in his ability to do now that I taught him how to bleed the master cylinder. He said he might still just have me do it all another day, but he at least knows how to do it himself now if he wants to.

On the way home, I had a little bit of a hair-brained idea. Years ago, when I was living in my car, I learned that lots of fast-food restaurants throughout their leftover food at the end of the day. One of the places that does that is Little Caesars. They have their hot and ready pizzas, and they don’t sell all of them by the time they close for the night because they always have to have some on hand, so invariably, they end up with wasted pizzas every night. If you’re an employee there, you’re only going to be able to handle eating so many little Caesars pizzas before you’re absolutely tired of them and no longer keep the leftovers for yourself. So… They go in the dumpster. Stacks of pizzas that are only hours old, if that.

I thought about it because I was passing the Little Caesars on the way home from my last job, pulled into the parking lot next to the Little Caesars, went over to the dumpster, and yep, several boxes of pizzas that were just dumped in there because no one was going to eat them. I grabbed five of them, and I’ll put them in the fridge for cold pizza.

No, it’s not vegan, but I’m not in this 100% for health reasons. I’m vegan more because of my concerns about how animals are treated just to make food for me that I don’t need. I’d rather have them have the opportunity to live full lives instead of just be raised until slaughtering age. But these pizzas were already made, no one anywhere is going to eat them, and they’re just going to rot in a landfill. The animals that were used to make them have already been slaughtered or milked or whatever, and my eating pizzas from the trash won’t increase the harm or the number of critters that are… abused.

Well, that was my day! 🙃

I started a new post, verbal vomit. 😊 I’ll probably finish it tomorrow. It’s a little different than my normal journaling posts. Hopefully it’ll be a benefit to me and others.

Anyway, love you all. 😊

Lift the World

~ stephen