Hey, You're Driving a Piece of JUNK!

In the emptying of the store, there was a slew of shelves that needed dismantling and moving out of the building. We already took the shelves that use to divide Kent's office space and put them up in our garage.

The shelves were built by Kent's dad from old displays. Really a clever idea. The displays were used as sidings and backing with press board as the shelving. There was a huge bunch of shelves left, actually the first one my Father in Law had built and the plan was to dismantle it and take it to my mother's house for her garage.

There isn't quite enough center support for my mother's emergency supplies, so Kent will still need to work them over but it's better then starting from scratch.

We took them apart a week and a half ago. To say they were overbuilt is an understatement. When Kent was unable to muscle some pieces apart and I had to help, you know the bolts were way to tight.

Little did we know that moving the shelves would be the bigger job. We did that Saturday. Now since there were a lot of pieces to be moved, we asked Kent's dad if we could borrow his pick-up. Kent's dad mentioned that there was a problem with the seal around the windshield. We decided to risk it.

Upon arriving at my inlaws, we noticed a pile of rusting metal in the back of the truck. Sometimes Kent's dad has given him metal to recycle so Kent went to check. Nope, that was Kent's dad and he was going to recycle it. Kent was gruffly told to "just work around it" when he asked where he could put it. So the rusty metal was taking a trip around town.

We got in, Kent turned the key and...... yeah, nothing. So I maneuvered the "burb" for jump starting, and with a whole lot of revving that truck finally started. The plan was for both of us to ride in the truck, we quickly switched plans and I drove the "burb", following my husband all over town. Before that happened, Kent discovered the truck was on empty with the gas light on. So our first stop was a gas station. Actually the gas station was the second stop. The first was at the side of the road halfway down the canyon so Kent could take the seal, that was flapping in his line of sight and tuck it under the windshield wipers.

I noticed that Kent had a hard time turning when he looped around at the gas station. Kent didn't even turn the engine off, not trusting that beast he was driving. Once again, hard time turning, really odd driving. I could tell Kent was struggling.

Once we made it to the old store, Kent told me he'd discovered that the truck had been left in four wheel drive. This the last time someone drove it, they went up the hill in the dead of winter and left in four wheel drive. It's August!!

We made it to the store, Kent drove the truck down to the loading bay and we hauled, and hauled, and hauled. Thankfully, even though the day was warm, there was a cool breeze when we were outside. It could have been a lot worse weather wise.

The big moment. Oh yeah baby, time for another jump start.

So there I was, following Kent over to my mother's house. We were almost there. Al...... most......

Oh CRUD!

Stalled at the intersection about four houses away from moms. It was a busy street too. So I pulled over at the same time two ladies jumped out of a little compact to help push. I hollered at Kent

HEY, You're Driving a piece OF JUNK!!!!

See, the women besides me had no way of knowing that this was my husband. Nor could they know that I'd help jump start that pickup two times already.

I saw horrified glances my direction.

I reassured them that it was okay, that was my husband. Kent hollers back that it's his dad's truck. I said, yeah, my father in law's truck. You could tell they felt slightly better when Kent acted like he knew me.

As opposed to me being a good Samaritan that makes a point of insulting the vehicles that I stop to push.

Oh yeah.

So, I had to drive up the street to turn around, to go down my mom's road, to turn around so I could face that darn truck head to head.

Did I mention the pull latch to open the suburban's hood is broken and you have to use pliers to open the hood? So I get the pliers out, decide I'm opening the hood this time, pull the wire, go outside, hit the hood like Kent does with my fist. And then decide that Kent is MORE then welcome to do the rest. I'll stick with starting the "burb".

Finally we get mom her shelves and that truck's battery actually started to hold a charge. Kent only had to hook up the cables and it started before I ever turned the keys on our vehicle. Kent did say that it stalled one more time on the way home but he was able to jam into first and get it going again.

So hopefully mom's new shelves are worth five stalls, four jump starts, two stops for maintenance while driving (the seal and gas) and one really shocking statement from his wife in front of strangers.

I'm sure it was.