Well, Muffler Day finally dawned
yesterday. After water therapy it was
time to take the truck in to have a new muffler installed so it could then be
inspected so I could then go get the registration sticker. But that muffler thing … I had no idea.
I called the place that had been
recommended to me by our mechanic.
Dennis assured me the guy running it could be trusted to do a good job
and give us a fair price. Strong
endorsement as far as I was concerned.
The shop itself was pretty run-down looking, but hey. I wanted a muffler, not a manicure. Sure enough, the guy who greeted me was quite
amiable, and seemed very willing to help.
He asked about my fire department cap.
Seems he grew up with some of the active duty guys: Moose, Jim, and
Danny were the ones he mentioned. When
he realized I was the chaplain he decided not to share any details of their
exploits together, however. Can’t say
anything to horrify the man of God, I guess.
Apparently he was the face of the business, too. He stopped what he was doing whenever anyone
walked up. He even diagnosed one lady’s
brake line leak, and then told her another place she could go to get it
fixed. I talked to several other folks, and
most were repeat customers who nothing but good to say about the company in
general and this guy in particular. You
have quite a reputation there, Bobby.
The thing that fascinated me was the way
the muffler was made. It was not one of
these pull-it-out-of-the-box, follow-the-installation-instructions kinds of
things. Well, I guess the muffler was
that. But not so much the
tailpipes. He cut the whole thing off
with a sawzall, and the muffler itself was a mess. It was so rusted that the pipes were
literally hanging by a thread. He told
me it was the original 1992 muffler that came with the truck. Hmm.
1992 to 2015. That’s twenty-three
years. Maybe I should be in a GMC TV commercial. He took the old pipes over to a vise he had,
grabbed a long straight pieces of pipe, and carefully molded it by hand to fit
the shape of the original. Bet he didn’t
think he would ever be using geometry back when he was in high school hanging
out with his buddies. Welding it all
back in place didn’t take him long at all, and I was back on the road. As far as I could tell the price was
reasonable, so I was happy on that count as well. But my day was not over yet.
Next I had to drive over to get the truck
inspected. Since it is so old, there are
only a few places left on the Island that do those inspections. The one I went to has been recommended by
several folks, including Dennis and some of the fire fighters. When I drove up there was an old guy
(Yep. Older than me) sitting in a padded
chair in the center of the entrance to the garage. He asked what I wanted, and when I said “an inspection
of a 1992 truck” he cursed a bit and added, “Now I have to move my chair.” Aside from running into a table when he tried
to get the truck inside, he was quite competent with the apparatus. Kept up a running commentary while he was
doing the testing, and the guy was absolutely hilarious. He announced the passing grade before the
computer ever did. I think he was determined
to get the thing passed no matter what the computer showed. Finally, he gave me my paperwork and sent me
on my way. Next stop … registration.
Well, I did have to go home first to pick
up the paperwork and have a bite of lunch.
The registration office was “way downtown.” It took me all of at least ten minutes to get
there. The line was pretty long,
too. Must have been seven people ahead
of me. I finally made my way to the
front, though. Took about two
minutes. And that’s about how long it
took to get the sticker – and new license plates. Seems the old ones are more than seven years
old, so they were “losing their reflectivity.”
I didn’t realize it until I got home, but the new ones didn’t have the
word “Truck” on them. Wonder if that’s
going to cause a problem in the future. I
got the sticker applied and the plates screwed on with no problems, and we finally
have a street-worthy truck once again.
Wonder what our next issue will be …
Psalms
25:4-5 says, “Show me your
ways, O Lord, teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is
in you all day long.”
Father, thank you for artisans like
Bobby who can craft such intricate twists and turns into a hunk of straight metal. Thank you for crafting the twists and turns
that have been my journey toward you. Can’t
wait to see what you have in store for me next.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment