And yet so strangely undepressed too … maybe I shouldn’t even say it; jinx and all, but it … ‘ll be okay I
know.
Ever since that
Graham.Phillips
Five.Hindrances
Raw.Deal.Noir nexus of moments, during which also I haven’t even told you about blasting through a re-reading of The Milagro Beanfield War first, I’ve been Better in some way.
I’ve been bedding around eleven and waking eight hours later. I’ve been neither depressed nor manic, not even of a Monday. I’ve been calm and almost dare I say serene. I’m posting a day ahead of myself here and I seem to have no end of things to say. It’s not a chore at all to come here and debrief with you.
Monday. Eightish in the morning. I was ready to get up and go to the dealership in Winslow in my unflat-bed Ford as planned. We were slow getting out of the house and for a moment I was tempted to be impatient. I checked a bank account to be sure of what I could pull out on the way. Suddenly there was 700 dollars more in it than the day before.
It took me quite a while to figure out where it had come from, and I still don’t know precisely. But someone, without leaving their name, had dropped a donation into a bucket I had set up many months ago and forgot about. I’d done that for the stated purpose of crowdfunding a house, to be put on the lot, down in the dream city I’ll be headed for, in a week, or ten days. We marveled, blessed, and concocted theories about the secret identity of the anonymous benefactor.
Then we headed out on the day’s business.
The service manager was dubious about finding a tech who would be both capable of and willing to be working on a truck that rolled off the line in Windsor, Ontario, in late 1998, but he called back to say that his old guy was back from lunch and had agreed, perhaps with an amused smile, to check it out at least. And oh–the part for the seventeen-year-old recall on the truck? In stock. Que milagro, seriously.
On the way out of the dealer’s lot, she got all enamored with an SUV, used and of a different make, a trade-in.
We had some good coffee at the only place to get good coffee there, and headed back home as the monsoon gathered.
When we landed, she started looking at this SUV on the web. It’s a longshot, because they’ve only been making this model for three years and so the stock of used ones is very limited, and right now used ones cost almost the same as new because covid and sanctions and inflation and shit, up over 40K at the cheapest.
I hit the autotrader site for her to verify and validate that, and yep …
But before I left autotrader, I looked over a few of my old searches for pickups, and immediately there was a literally unbelievable deal sitting there right in front of my eyes–keep in mind, I’m not looking for a truck, I don’t need a truck, I have a truck … but god damned if they weren’t giving it away practically for free in this market.
$1,999. The same magic number. The model year of both the truck and the trailer, except both of those had cost more than than two piddling grand …
I studied the ad.
Almost every single thing about this other truck was exactly identical to the one I have, the one I had dropped off at the dealer earlier, right down to the trim level, the 4WD, the year, the exact engine, and the automatic transmission, the one I paid 6K for nine months ago … except …
It wasn’t a 150. It was a 250, and a Super Duty 250 at that. (Short version: It’s much more built and can haul literal tons more.)
Also, it was a regular bed pickup instead of my long one. It was two-tone blue instead of white. It had a fancy aftermarket stereo in it, and it had fifty thousand fewer miles on the Triton V-8. One owner, and records going back 22 years showing it had always been registered and always been serviced at the dealer in American Fork.
For 2K out the door–what?– except for taxes, and, well, whatever 1000 miles of gas costs these days, because American Fork is in suburban Salt Lake City.
So, and this is a very un-Vairtere way to operate, I straightaway called up the dealership and asked for sales. I told the guy I’d seen the ad, and that I wanted to know what in hell was wrong with it, that they were letting it go for that ridiculous price. In a tone that was bideny, c’mon man, level with me jack, I was born at night but not last night …
He joshed right back at me and said wellsir, I sure could charge you more if you insist, but the deal is not a troll or a bait and switch… the only thing I know of that’s wrong is that the check-engine light is on, and it’s on because the cylinder number six in that V-8 is not firing. Which, might mean a spark plug, aaaand it might mean an engine replacement …
I said, tell you what amigo. Slap a plug in it for me, see where that leaves us, and we’ll talk some more. The truth is, I don’t really need a truck, and I am not feeling happy about dropping everything and driving 500 miles north tomorrow. But if this really is two grand plus whatever a spark plug costs, and not two grand plus whatever a new engine costs … yeah, I’m still interested. Put my name at the top of the list and like I said, we’ll talk.
I think he probably left work shortly after that. At any rate, no additional data yet.
I did spend the evening studying F250s of the SuperDuty variety. I did study the 37 pictures on autotrader assiduously (and there is rust, not a lot, but not none either, and of course there’s no picture of the underneath). I pulled the Carfax on it, and that’s where I learned about the one owner who had it serviced at the one dealer for 22 years straight, and also that it had never been wrecked, and also that Carfax considers the title to be clean. And that in their opinion, the truck should bluebook between $5500-8500.
It looks very much, and may be, like something too good to be true.
I’ll listen quietly to what Mr. Service Manager has to say in the morning, and I’ll decide what to do then.
But here’s the thing. IF I could really go fetch it for something like what they’re asking, and IF I could get it at least four hundred miles closer to home under it’s own power without it shooting a rod out the side of the Triton … this is pretty close to a no-lose proposition.
Even stone cold dead I could probably get my 2K back out of it. And if I made it home, limping or no, it’s worth twice that easy.
Or … or … lordlord …
See, the truck I own, the F150, is worth the same or very close to the same as a new engine, in this market. And the truck I own … well, eventually it would need a new engine itself someday.
What I’m thinking is, even if the 2K F250 dies as I roll it into the driveway, I could sell the F150, take that cash, use it for the engine, and end up with one whole ‘new’ F250, Super Duty, for not much more than I’ve already spent, truckwise.
It would take time, and effort, and hassle, and yet, while all that sorts itself out, we do still have … a trailer, and a capable tow vehicle in the form of an E350 van not currently in use, probably headed south to the promised land in this worst case scenario … and two old cars for backup besides, here in the olden north.
Car poor, car rich …
Baby, I don’t know anything about anything.
Except that before I get too jazzed and shaky, I’m going to bed on time and leaving this whole pile for your literary pleasure, and heading off to crazy but peaceful dreams about who I really am since the milagro moment.