Deferred Maintenance

Although there is only one of me in our family that drives a Guzzler, we must be living the American Dream.   Carolyn no longer drives but still we are owned by three of them.  If you can believe it, this situation is the result of carefully made plans.  We actually knew this was what we wanted and spent good money to become slaves to these three multi-ton monsters.

When I first started to realize retirement was just around the corner we signed up for two of them, one after the other, having convinced ourselves we wanted new wheels at our fingertips.  The hope was we would avoid the trouble and expense associated with clunkers. Then Carolyn lost the ability to drive.  Oh well, we'll always have a spare if one of them needs work.

The third one wound up in our driveway because I inherited it from my father upon his passing. It is a 37 year old Chevy pick up that needs a TON of new parts, seats and paint before I would consider it reliable transportation.  During the last years of his life Dad didn't have the energy to keep it in top condition as he had done for several decades and old pickups are like old cookies, they just sort of crumble away.  My Dad and I spent a lot of time together in that old truck, he owned it for years.  We took it gold panning, hunting, fishing and just to the store together for all those years and I hated to see it wind up being used to transport illegal aliens across the border.

That is not a political statement of any kind, it's just the truth.  In case you don't know it, there is a big market in this part of the country for fifteen hundred to two thousand dollar 4WD pickups that are used as throw away haulers of these folks. I was too emotionally connected to my Dads' pickup to allow that to happen so it now sits in my driveway in need of extensive repair.  I'll get around to it one of these days.

A couple of weeks ago the "Change Oil" light illuminated on the dash of the Guzzler.  Since I am a very busy man I just pulled it into the garage, shut the door and started driving the Guzzler Deluxe instead.  I cannot for the life of me figure out how I ever found the time to work everyday.  I'm busier now than ever before.  Maybe it has something to do with moving slower - I don't know. 

Well, yesterday the "Change Oil" light started glowing in the Guzzler Deluxe.  Now I had three vehicles in need of service.  Jeeze, this stuff piles up on a guy.  So I spent today locating a place to service the machines.  I drove to the local franchise of the company I used in New Mexico on the MacDonald's theory, "Ya know what you're gonna get".  There were two bays that were full but there was no line.  I pulled in and was told there would be a 25 minute wait.  Twenty-five minutes before they could even get started?  These guys were supposed to get you in and out in a jiffy.   I needed to do this twice today so I looked for greener pastures.

Just down the road was a place named "Oil Can Henry's" and they also had two bays where they could perform the service I required.  Their bays were also full but I thought I'd try my luck.  A guy wearing a Touring Cap and bow tie ran out to greet me with a newspaper in his hand.  He gave me the newspaper and asked if I'd like some coffee while I waited.  I asked how long it would be and he said  "Oh, about five minutes or so."  I ordered the coffee, started reading the paper and before long was inside and over the pit where more Touring Capped and bow tied guys could work on my Guzzler.  An hour later I repeated the process and was on my way home.

"Cool" was the word that came to mind.  My deferred maintenance was taken care of in a day!