2/6/08

My first car was a 1981 Oldsmobile 98 Regency. I sold it when I went to college. My dad fixed the little stuff that broke, but I had no real problems with that car. The back seat was awesome, but I'm just sayin'... When I moved back to Michigan, I bought a 1989 Mustang. That car was a piece of shit. After I spent as much money getting that damn thing repaired as I did to buy it, I swore that I would never buy another used car. Yes, I am now very cynical about mechanics. If it weren't for the fact that I'm completely illiterate when it comes to cars, I would tend to think that CTL was being taken for a ride tonight.

I drove over to the broker this morning and made my drop. Nothing special there. I did find it amusing that my truck showed absolutely no symptoms of the last few days' troubles. Our terminal sits on a road with a 60mph speed limit, so I floored it once I left the driveway. All good. Strong acceleration, no worries. Weird. Then I headed over to the Kenworth dealer.

I was hoping they would get me in quickly. They did. Less than 20 minutes in fact. I was further hoping to get back to the terminal and get on the board this afternoon. I didn't. The mechanics worked on my truck, off and on, all damn day. I hung out, played some computer games, watched some movies (Babel sucked ass, Trainspotting was decent), and waited for them to release my truck. Nope. I write to you this evening from the Corleone family's Texas estate, located in room 272 at the Family Garden Inn and Suites. They say my truck will be ready tomorrow, so there's still a good shot to get something good before the week wraps up.

The dealership had torches and grinders and all kinds of crazy shit going this afternoon. My instinct was that they were taking CTL for a few extra bucks, but like I said I don't know shit about trucks. They're saying it has a "fucked up" (their words, not mine) exhaust system, but what do I know? I do find it amusing that the damn truck could have just behaved long enough for one more trip and this wouldn't have been my issue at all. Such is life. If it's good to go tomorrow I'll be okay.

The hotel that the dealer, as well as CTL, told me to use is a pretty nice one. There's a courtyard with fountains and shit, so I managed to grab another bunch of those... err... iced teas... and hang out on the balcony for a while. I think that was good. My life is definitely short on serenity. We'll see what tomorrow brings.