Guess I Asked for This

Check out my book, Odd Jobs & After Hours here.

Guess I asked for this, to be crammed under the undercarriage of this truck, cranking a wrench on a bolt while a fine mist of metal rust showers down endlessly.

Still cursing though, even though I got what I wanted.

Job one on the new truck is getting a new mid-body fuel tank in place.

We got it home without a fireball despite a drip, drip, drip of gasoline out of said tank in the final leg of the journey.

The bolts holding the old tank in there are rusty and crusty.

Soaked ’em down with PB Blaster overnight, but I still had to fight for every centimeter of thread on the bolt.

Back on a blue tarp, and the old gas tank dripping gasoline on me for about an hour. I’m completely soaked.

Highly flammable, that’s what I am on this crystal clear fall day in New Hampshire.

It’s a matter of life and death to avoid my chain-smoking housemate in this moment.

Shing – out slides the bolt. At last. One metal strap drops down from the undercarriage. Bonks me in the face.

The tank creaks and droops down.

Wires and the second metal strap hold the fuel tank in place.

The rest of the bolts might need another night in PB Blaster.

What is the truck for?

Teamed up with a friend to buy land out west.

This is going to be the work truck on the land.

I’m working on a pressing deadline. My friend has one free vacation week in which he can meet me on the land.

I’ve got to get the truck ready to trek well before then. I need it ready to drive across country one week before my friend is free.

Right now, soaked in gasoline, covered in rust dust and fingers sliced to ribbons on metal bits, that seems unlikely. I mean, this truck needs so much work.

The to do list is extensive.

The sun goes down.

I decide to slide back under and attack the bolts again.

To be continued