Monday, December 29, 2008

12/29/08 OOPS! Truck Has a Boo-Boo!

Oh today was NOT my day! Ann, of the Red Team, and I started out at 10 a.m. to go shopping at Fry's grocery store for the remainder of the foodstuffs we needed for our New Years Eve celebration. I had tons of dollar bills, fives and tens and decided to stop at the bank just outside of the park to trade them in for 20's and 50's. I just don't understand having to have a bank account in a BANK for trading twenty one dollar bills for a twenty dollar bill. Isn't that what they are there for? Would my dollar bills not be real ones if I didn't have an account there? Luckily, Quail Run does have an account and I could trade up all the smaller bills for big ones. In the end I went from a huge wad of money to a slim packet of just six bills. That done, me and the Thomas J's, which were secured deep in my pocket, jumped in the truck and headed for Casa Grande.

When I put the truck in reverse little did I know it would be more than an hour before I would get out of the parking lot. I checked the mirrors and satisfied that no car or truck was behind me I proceeded to back out of my spot, the rear end of the truck turning to the left. And then................IT HAPPENED! Oh My God ! What was that? What happened? I threw it up in the park and looked out the side view mirror. I saw this HUGE BOULDER, well, ok it was about 2.5 feet high but it looked freakin' HUGE in the mirror! Alls I could say was....OH SH_T! OH SH_T! I got out of the truck sure that I was going to see a huge dent in the bumper, the rear fender, the tailgate, the diamond plated tool box and possibly even the driver's side door. Well, maybe the driver's side door is an exaggeration but I knew it was gonna be bad! Much to surprise and delight(!) there wasn't a scratch on the truck but something just didn't look right. It took me a few seconds to really understand what I was seeing and more so understanding how the hell I did this! Oh I wish I had had the camera with me. I bent down beside the side of the truck near the rear wheels to really get an understanding of the damage. Somehow, someway, the mud flap on the rear driver's side wheel got caught between the tires and the curb and RIPPED OUT the entire innards of the wheel well. All I could see was this metal rod that hooked somewhere up there in the wheel well and it looked like it was poking INTO the tire. I tried to move it so see if it was in fact loose and not lodged in the fairly NEW tire and I couldn't budge it! Then I see the fiberglass piece that was RIPPED from the rear quarter panel. It just keeps getting worse and worse. I stand up and face the reality that I have to tell Bob, there's no way I can hide this. There's no way I can play innocent and tell him it was like that when I came out of the bank and no, Ann didn't see or feel a thing. This kind man comes over to see if he can help and offers his cell phone. I took a deep breath and started dialing. I just hate having to tell Bob that the truck we are getting ready to sell, the one he has pampered and babied for the past eight years, the one that rates a 9 on a scale of 10 for looks, has a boo boo. A boo boo I caused.

The phone started ringing and I was praying that he wouldn't answer, that I would find out that he took off in the new truck for parts unknown, never to return. At least that way I wouldn't have to tell him what happened. My luck just doesn't run that way. He answered. "Hello",,,Hi, its me, I kinda sorta had an incident with the truck. "OHHHH SNOOOKIIIIEEEEE! Not, are you ok? Are you hurt? Did you kill anyone? Just OHHHH, SNOOOKIIIIEEEE! It spoke volumes, believe me. I never felt so bad having to tell him this. He's taken such good care of this truck as he does all of our things and I gave it a boo boo. I told him where I was and he said he was on his way. He was not a happy camper.

Soon he arrived and all I could do was stand there. There's no sense in repeating what he said because all you would read is.... #*&$^)%&#^#%!@!

He finally was able to get the innards of the wheel well complete free and I was on my way. By the way, the metal rod was not sticking in the tire.

So off Ann and I go to Fry's. Much later than we figured on getting started and we had tons of stuff to buy. When I reached the store, a good 15 miles from Arizona City, (its the new Fry's out on Pinal) I realized I didn't have my 10% off coupon that they gave out to residents of the RV parks in honor of their grand opening. What do I do now? We're going to spend several hundred dollars here and I want that discount! I asked for the manager and she understood my dilemma and said to ask for her when we were ready for checkout, that she would make sure we got it. Finally! Something is going right today!

So Ann and I shopped and shopped and shopped until we had everything on a our two page, typewritten, single spaced list. We had two overflowing carts and we couldn't put another thing on the racks on the bottom. No one even bothered to get in line behind us, everyone knew we were going to be there a long time.

It took us three carts to get it all outside to the truck and 15 minutes to load into the truck cab, the tool boxes in the back and the front passenger seat floor. Then we were on our way to Walmart for the rest of the items.

We spent a fortune but we have everything we need. No one will go away New Years Eve hungry.

When I finally got home things were a little "cool" shall we say. I kept to myself and certainly didn't want to push any buttons this night. I was informed that a new fender would be in our future but I really had my doubts about that. My thought was make the passenger side match the driver side and all is well. Of course I didn't say that out loud.

So that was my day,,,,how was yours?

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