My truck failed Virginia state inspection for legality, because I needed a new center link (which explain the looseness of steering, but it's really not that bad). So being the type of guy who unexplainedly feels impotent if he can't fix his own vehicle, I decided to get the part and figure it out (with the help of my trusty Haynes Manual). I go to the four-lane miracle mile auto parts places, meaning Advance Auto and Autozone, and neither of them has the part, but Advance could order it and have it the next day. I am reluctant because their alternators suck (if you buy one from them for replacing on your vehicle, don't tighten the bolts too tight, because you're gonna have to do it again in four months). Advance Auto is white and bright and usually has like four young white guys working there, one middle-aged black guy (who is the cool one, but usually outside in the parking lot with the battery/alternator testing cart, talking to someone from high school), and one fat creepy redneck woman. You really want to catch one of the white guys (again, ideally the black guy, but he's never inside) to try and find your part. Autozone I completely don't trust because it has too many spinner wheel covers and Mexicans with frosted hair to ever feel comfortable inside of.
So I was about to give up when I accidentally drove by a Federated Auto Parts place in the older part of town. I figured, fuck it, and stopped in. There was very little actual shelf space for customers peruse, basically just one long ass wooden counter, painted with grey oil paint and covered with promotional bullshit from ten years ago, and a small army of older dudes waiting to see what I needed. Most of the shit you could buy was behind them in long thin library-like aisles, and you could tell from looking at these geezers interact, some had worked here for going on 15, 20 years. It was really beautiful, the way America used to be, where you got a job, and so long as you didn't fuck up, they didn't fuck you up. You might not have dental insurance, but you got Labor Day paid, and the carpet down the aisles behind the counter was well worn by brown shoes. The guy who happened to help me had facial hair exactly like my dad, just my dad died at 47 and this guy was easily pushing 55, so it was like my dad got old and we didn't know each other and he had to look up a center link for a Nissan truck on a computer he wasn't completely comfortable punching buttons on. (They still have like five feet of giant, crinkly-paged catalogs in the middle of the counter, where the parts are listed for real old school style, in case they have to get all old school on you. That's beautiful too, because if the power system failed, those other places would be lost with no computers to process every fucking thing they do. At least I know if our electrical grid completely blows up one weekend, I can still get some new brakes or spark plugs for my car to help pass the powerless time.) They also didn't have my part, but they could get it too. Unlike the Advance Auto androids, who were like, "Please transmit your creditory information to us and we can process this automobile part into our coordinates by 1400 hours one daily cycle into the future thank you customer #281093760," the Federated dude was like, "I don't know if it'll be here tomorrow. Hold on." And he called over a taller, older dude who was like, "Well damn man. Usually if we order it by 4, we have it tomorrow morning." It was 4:20 brah. "We should be able to get it here though, it ain't comin' from but Staunton." I told them to go ahead and order it, so I paid with my stupid credit card since I'm broke of any real monies right now. The older, taller guy said, "Call up here tomorrow and make shore it came in before you come up here." "How late are you open?" "Not but till 2, and make sure you get here 'cuz we are outta here at two." Then he turned to my fake old dad and said, "Make shore you put on there for Dave that he's gonna call in the morning to see if it came in." I was stoked, whether the part came or not, I felt good about supporting America, about doing my part, whatever little part that was. Fixing my own car and keeping this crazy old fuckers in business.
Next day, the part was there, so after coaching U-6 soccer, I rolled to town to get the part. Came home, wrong part completely, for a 4x4 and I have a 2WD, which I told my old fake dad. Oh well. While I was under there, I realized it was the idler arm and not the center link, and the only place I could get a center link anyways was from the dealer, which was like $400. So I returned the wrong center link, and being they was old school, the older tattooed guy who took my return gave me cash instead of returning the money to my credit card, which I had told my wife they would probably do, since it wasn't a shiny, sterile ass place. They deal in cash first, even on returns. So I had $110 all of a sudden, even though I had been broke. And that is how I had money for a six-pack on my ride home today, in my wife's car, because I had yet to change the idler arm on my truck, and it's been sitting on jack stands half the week. At least I have jack stands now. When it was just my Volvo, I used solid cinderblocks (for foundations), which always looked good passing by on the road. That Volvo has been sitting there under the oak tree with two flat tires for like 20 months now. I should just put it up on cinderblocks again and throw the tires in the back of the truck until I have actualy money again to get new ones put on the rims. Then I can have two cars, all to myself. We Americans sometimes don't realize how fucking good we got it.
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