By Buster McNutt
Lady M. and I just finished with our every-30-years colonoscopy “screening,” and now the septic tank is demanding equal time. I was washing some towels, and the toilet started bubbling and soon filled with soap suds. Having the keen analytical mind that I do, I immediately connected the two. But I suppose that was a better outcome than if the toilet had backed up into the washing machine.
So with just a month left to go in the year, I suppose it’s time to get working on the New Year’s resolutions. I won’t bore you with the compulsory ones: exercise more, eat/drink less, quit flossing uppers on odd and lowers on even numbered days of the month, mow the yard while I can still see the engine on the mower, remove the “I Heart Danica” bumper sticker from the wheelbarrow, replace the batteries in the nose/ear hair trimmer, and so on. I’ll focus on the ones that are automotive related, regardless of how distant some of those relations might be.
1) Repave the driveway. The crushed plastic water bottles are not holding up, and the bottle caps keep getting stuck in the tire treads, which gives great traction on icy dirt roads, which Al Gore says will definitely happen in Florida because of global warming. Is it just me, or is he looking more like a Jim Henson Muppet every year?
2) Wash our vehicles more often than when it rains on odd numbered Saturdays in Death Valley. Dirt has no loyalty to its roads; it is a fickle harlot that will cling to any warm-bodied appendage that passes its way. It is particularly attracted to well-formed sheet metal and will flout itself shamelessly across every square inch, impervious to all forces of man or nature, except for its personal kryptonite: pressurized water from a “hose pipe.” I was almost arrested at a routine traffic stop when the officer looked at my registration that said I had a white Chevrolet S10, when the vehicle I was driving was obviously of a more brown persuasion. Fortunately I was able to use the corkscrew attachment on my Swiss Army knife (like Switzerland actually has an Army) to bore a two inch hole through the dirt to prove the actual color was white. The problem was that the paint had not been exposed to the outside air for so long that it immediately started rusting.
3) Order those plans to convert the S10 to run on chicken droppings and “lump methane,” which the local dairy farmers will allow you to tote off as much as you’d like.
4) Remove the elk horns from the front of the S10. It does not keep deer from crossing the road in front of the truck, and whenever I want to get in it I have to fight through a flock of buzzards that have decided it makes a great little tiny home for the winter.
5) Get serious about building a garage. The surplus circus tent is not getting the job done and has started attracting all manner of local wildlife with show biz aspirations, including a raccoon that juggles Fritos, a firefly eating armadillo, and the twin albino squirrels that jump through hoops of sunburned snakes. Fortunately for all, the turkey with the clown mask was eaten by the dancing bear on the way to the audition.
6) Replace the Happy Meals bobble head Albert Einstein on the S10’s rear bumper with a proper trailer hitch. The last tow did not end well.
7) Make a go/no-go decision on buying the widow Haslam’s 1989 Chevy Caprice Classic Station Wagon. It has the rare 350 fuel-injected engine — obviously from the same year Corvette, so at least I can get an air cleaner decal with the little Corvette wingy things. It has low mileage because “it was only driven to church” and the church was a double wide only three houses away, until it blew up because two of the elders had binge watched the first 50 episodes of “Breaking Bad” and decided the best way to pay for the combination Jacuzzi/Baptismal Pool was to cook up a little methamphetamine. I thought the car had a very unique mohair upholstery, until I found out the widow once had 50 cats and is down to a couple now, and I’m not sure I want to know the rest of that story. I could always get it reupholstered, and if not, I wouldn’t have to worry about mice in the car.
8) Update the “Navigation System” on the S10. Right now it consists of a small clipboard glued to the dashboard to hold the maps that I cut out before I take a trip, and a Radio Shack cassette player that I got at a garage sale. The first time I go anywhere, I turn on the cassette and record the streets I travel on, how many miles before I turn, any road hazards I see, and when I get there I add a snappy “You have arrived at your destination!” The next time I go to that same place, I don’t even use the maps – I just listen to the tapes! Laugh if you will, but when the terrorists, rouge nuclear nations, solar flares, or maybe aliens knock out our GPS satellites, I’ll still be good to go. I’m thinking I need to get a patent filed before this article goes to press!
I’m sure I could come up with several more resolutions, but some of them might start sounding silly and hard to believe. Oh wait — it has started raining. I need to run out, shake the antlers on the truck to run the buzzards off, and squirt some dishwashing liquid on the hood. I “washed” the top the rain before, the front fenders the rain before that, and so on. It’s relatively easy and painless, unlike the backed up septic tank, and most definitely the every-30-years colonoscopy.
But even that worked out well … in the end. •
