the silver s-10 saga

there’s a lot to unpack here…

…so we’re gonna skip the bulk of it.

back in july my uncle hit a tree on his way home when a bad storm took it down across a blind corner at night. while it’s easy to blame him being eighty-five at the time and all, i’ve spoke to some of his neighbors who all suffered, or no someone who suffered, the same fate.

it took out the windshield and bent up the cab and roof pretty good…

and again, to help defend him on this (which i don’t often do), he drove the last couple of miles home, in the dark and the rain, in this vehicle, and even backed it up into this space. that’s pretty fuckin’ impressive!

i encouraged him to call his insurance company and have it looked it, which he never did. i chalked this up to arutro procrastination, but it turns out it was more practical – he only had liability insurance, so it’s not like he was gonna get a check cut for his. a month or so later, while hospitalized for a separate (100% his fault) incident he told me he wanted me to sell the truck for scrap and he’d split the money with me.

i called a spot, but as he was indisposed i didn’t have access to the title, so there it sat. finally, about a month ago, he announced to me that he had found the title and he wanted to proceed. and that’s when the “hilarity” ensued.

so we’ll skip forward to last week. i had called a “wrench-a-part” place that was less than five miles from him to arrange the deal. i thought it was weird the guy wanted me to send a pic of the title to what appeared to be a personal cell phone, but it turns out it’s a company roll out number that is used so they don’t dispatch a driver out only for you to NOT have the title but try and pull that, “…but since you’re here anyway…” bullshit.

we set it up for a tuesday because they wouldn’t let you do an actual time, just a “window” of three hours (9am – 12pm or 1pm – 4pm…i took the former because i have to take the kid to work at 1pm). i set an alarm for tuesday (my typical first “sleep in day”) and was up and ready by 9am…and sat. at 11:45 i texted the number i had sent the title to see what was up and was told “the driver must be a little behind, but should be in contact shortly!”.

at 1pm i took os to work and went to the store to get the last of our thanksgiving fixings. of course, while in the loud-ass hectic-ass store he called, but i didn’t hear it. i called him back and got him, but couldn’t here him over the din of the store so i asked if i could call him back in ten and he agreed. i practically jogged through the store, got checked out, and got to the car in nine minutes. called….voicemail. repeat. repeat. repeat. same result.

when i got back to the house (six calls to the tow truck driver and six voicemails later) i called the office and they said they’d contact the driver and call me back. instead i got told a different driver would meet me in half an hour and to head to my uncles. i made it three minutes from the house and he called…

hello, my friend – my g.p.s. says i’ll be there in eight minutes!
no, you will not – i was told it would be thirty and i’m literally in a different county. i’ll call you when i pass the yard as you’re on the way…cool?
sure thing – i’ll just sit in my truck and mess with my phone till then!

exactly twenty-two minutes later when i passed the scrap yard i called and got voicemail. this is when i really lost my shit, because now i had committed and drove out there. i called the office again, and ironically got the guy who set the whole deal up in the first place. i promised him that if we got this deal done that day i would never call them again. ever. in life. he said he wanted me to let his supervisor know how crappy things were going, and put me on hold so he could get him on the phone. WHILE on hold, the driver called in on my other line so i picked up.

he said he’d meet me in ten. it took closer to thirty. that wasn’t a bad thing as it afforded me time to remove all the license plates, including the one off the wayward bumper that was across the yard, and inflate the back tires, which surprisingly still had just under 20psi of air in em (i bumped them each to thirty) and then we got it up and gone. i hauled ass back to lockhart to get to the bank and cash the check before they closed and went home and poured a stiff drink.

the project i had planned on finishing up before i took os to work at 1pm had finally wrapped at around 4pm, but at least it was done!

now lets never speak of this thing again!