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thisnewdayThe past two weeks have felt like a car repair marathon. And it's not that I've really accomplished that much. Because working outside, two feet off the ground, on jack stands, with a bad back, in Central New York weather, while daunting, is truly not conducive to productivity. Nor is working on unfamiliar cars with poorly-written repair manuals and a tool kit depleted by years of neglect and the random "borrowing" of others.
So, yeah, I could go on like that forever, but the bottom line is that if I'd been doing this to support a family, their a$$e$ would've starved by now. But I'm not, and they haven't, so the reality is that I've probably saved a couple of hundred bucks by avoiding the dealer mark-up on parts and the incredible rates they charge for labor. And that's after buying a halfway decent hydraulic jack and stands, as well as the miscellaneous hand tools I bought to facilitate things as I was going along.
I commented to Her Nurseliness that I was amazed how, after the hundreds of cars I'd worked on, I still learned a couple of new things working on these last two. And she couldn't resist saying, with reference to my deteriorating mental state, "You probably knew them once but just forgot them." And I replied, "Yeah, but the good news is that I'll likely be dead before I need to know them again."
Aside from that, I'm always amazed at how the adversities you face in your driveway never fail to bring out the comedians in the neighborhood. The day I was getting ready to wrap things up on my son's car, my neighbor across the street yells over, "Hey Larry, think you're gonna be driving that thing anytime soon?" And I yelled back, "Yeah, Dick, I hope to have 'er running before the snow flies."
Which, around here, is really no joke. At least to those of us old enough to remember the brutal winters we used to have here. And may be the one thing my enfeebled mind is not likely to forget...
LPK
LiveJournal
10.12.2012
So, yeah, I could go on like that forever, but the bottom line is that if I'd been doing this to support a family, their a$$e$ would've starved by now. But I'm not, and they haven't, so the reality is that I've probably saved a couple of hundred bucks by avoiding the dealer mark-up on parts and the incredible rates they charge for labor. And that's after buying a halfway decent hydraulic jack and stands, as well as the miscellaneous hand tools I bought to facilitate things as I was going along.
I commented to Her Nurseliness that I was amazed how, after the hundreds of cars I'd worked on, I still learned a couple of new things working on these last two. And she couldn't resist saying, with reference to my deteriorating mental state, "You probably knew them once but just forgot them." And I replied, "Yeah, but the good news is that I'll likely be dead before I need to know them again."
Aside from that, I'm always amazed at how the adversities you face in your driveway never fail to bring out the comedians in the neighborhood. The day I was getting ready to wrap things up on my son's car, my neighbor across the street yells over, "Hey Larry, think you're gonna be driving that thing anytime soon?" And I yelled back, "Yeah, Dick, I hope to have 'er running before the snow flies."
Which, around here, is really no joke. At least to those of us old enough to remember the brutal winters we used to have here. And may be the one thing my enfeebled mind is not likely to forget...
LPK
LiveJournal
10.12.2012
