Loyal Scaiaholics will recall I’ve never had an at-fault crash in a news car. I have been fired for a crash. Maybe they did the right thing, though. I was wrong to order that hurricane.
This week, my five year streak of not wrecking station cars came to an end.
The gentleman who rear ended me and I were both okay, and KRLD hasn’t fired me. At least not yet.
And #ScaiaBlog is about the positive. You know what’s been a stalwart, a reliable presence, lo these years of uncertainty? My truck.
#ScaiaTruck dates back to my first job back in SuperOregon. Fresh out of college and phat with a $25,000 salary, I decided to own a brand new car.
Today, $25,000 might buy you lunch, but even though it went further Back In The Day, I still elected to get a stripped-down model.
My truck doesn’t have electric doors or windows, which often surprises people who walk up to the passenger side to talk to me in parking lots, and I start gesturing wildly for them to either come to the other side or go away [frequently the latter]. It does, however, feature the latest audio technology, what with these compact discs taking the world by storm.
I planned to get rid of it when I Made It Big. For instance, I was handsomely compensated during my time at the network in exchange for taking pictures of myself looking concerned while standing in the middle of hurricanes.
But I’m a simple man. After all these changes, what’s been the one constant? My truck.
“Sure, it doesn’t have these fancy ‘electronic’ [pronounced with a long “e”] gadgets, but doggone it, it still goes,” I’ve explained to anyone willing to listen and many others who weren’t. “Plus, it’s classy when I unlock the door for a lady before going to my side. All those guys with fobs and remote starters don’t know a thing about being a gentleman.”
The truck will be old enough to vote next month, just in time for the mid-terms [It doesn’t like how combative the two parties have become]. We’ve had our problems. We had a long talk when it started smoking a couple years back, but the truck gave it up for its own good.
I have given up changing my own oil. After that unknown calamity in the first paragraph, it was easier to take it to a place than crawl under the truck on my own. My first boss back in Oregon had even suggested changing one’s own oil wasn’t worth it way Back In The Day. I’ve come to agree … the place where I take it does all this other maintenance which might [might] be helping it keep on truckin’.
Having said that, I took it in for its annual inspection the other day. They said it couldn’t pass because the brake warning light was on.
Look at that picture while playing this minor chord.
While that video is playing read on: I had checked the fluid level and even took apart part of the dash so I could check the connection. Everything worked.
They said I could come back in a couple days because their diagnostics guy was out, but they charge $100 for diagnostics. I went to another place nearby. They offered to run the diagnostic program for [I hope the music is still playing] $125 plus however much the fix would be.
I went to a third place I’d prefer not to name [I bring that up even though I haven’t named either of the other places].
“Yeah, sure, it’ll be fine. You checked the fluid level? You checked the system works okay? I’m sure it’s fine.”
We may all feel beaten down by the constant drum beat of negative news, but let my truck give us all hope for a bright future. Let my truck help us all recognize that even though we’re not perfect, we can pass, if you will, the inspection of life [play this celebratory music as you read that].
