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| - Ever have one of those decades? When everything you do is not quite right, bordering on horribly wrong?
Yeah. Me too. And this is the second in a row, which ain't that pretty at all.
Driving one of my diesel trucks along, singin' a song, bye, bye blackbird... uh-oh. Fuel gauge looks like perhaps the needle fell off. Swing into a station, just about to pull up to the pump, phone rings, I talk, I glance at the pump, I talk, I dispense gas... Uh. Gas. Okay. Except not okay. Gasoline goes into gas tanks for gas engines, diesel into diesel tanks for diesel engines.
But I don't notice, until I'm back on the freeway, singin' a song, bye, bye... engine. Pull onto the exit ramp, shut 'er down, hoping that I won't find a pile of metal filings where once I had a complete, working engine. Get on the phone, call my favorite wrench, he assures me that if I do NOT run it, but rather have his hooker come out and service me... You know. Tow truck driver. Get MY mind outta YOUR gutter, willya? Then? All should be fine.
They say ninety minutes, which is pretty great, as it is mid-day, and I'm sure other people are spinning wildly out of control throughout the greater metro area. And some are probably in cars, too. So the tow guy must be swamped. (And I of course calculate that ninety minutes will more probably be at least twice that, so I settle in for a long, winter's sleep...)
Whah? He's here, backing up, ready to hook. Does a nice, downright graceful one-eighty on the ramp, noses that big rig right up to my little rig, and we're right back on the road. From call to delivery, including the twenty minute ride, the hooking, the pleasantries, the awkward handshake? Maybe an hour.
The Men of Kufner Towing. Serving multi-tasking nimrods, just like me, since at least eleven this morning.
"A hat should be taken off when greeting a lady, and left off the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat."
-- P.J. O'Rourke
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