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Sunday, June 6, 2004 I Broke It I must be generating some sort of Luddite anti-technology field. It all started last week, with the aforementioned fishing trip. I neglected to tell you that on our way to the river, I looked down at my truck's temperature gauge, and it was pegged in the red. I had just had the oil changed (poorly), and when they told me that they had checked all of the fluids, I had assumed that they had checked the coolant, since it is one of the easiest to see. You don't even need a dipstick; it's right there. Of course, that's the one fluid that they don't check. I'd been driving with little or no antifreeze for an indeterminable amount of time. I used to check all of the dipstick/fluid levels almost every time I started my old truck, because it was invariably low on something. With my new truck, I just sort of assume that everything is cool (pun intended). It has always been worry free, but now I was freaking out about it. Was there a leak in the system? Was it going to implode right there on the freeway outside of town with my screaming baby strapped in her car seat of death? Would I have trouble unbuckling my poor little one from her fiery prison as the flames curled around her cute little monkey feet? We went to a drug store, and I put a little coolant in the reservoir. Ani was being very helpful. She said things like, "Well, it's a good thing we have a reliable car now." I really love my truck, and I don't want to think of it as the shitty car that we can't rely on anymore, so my mind was circling around itself with all of the possible mechanically crippling problems that would turn my favorite vehicle of all time into a crappy exploding lemon. We drove to the river, watching the temperature gauge very carefully the whole way to see if it would repeat its earlier heat spasm. (Side note: it has been running great ever since. It just needed it's dorky owner to top off the coolant.) I was parked at the side of the road, getting my fly gear ready to hit the river for the first time of the season, watching the patch of dirt under my truck for a river of leaked coolant, and I couldn't get the spool with my line on it to seat itself onto the reel. This is a fly reel that my Dad gave to me, the kind of reel that should be a lifelong possession: one that I could hand down to Ruby. I vaguely remember taking a rough fall at the end of last season where the reel took the full force of my body's impact on a river stone. Futzing around to see what could be wrong, I saw a strange little wire sticking out of the reel's internal mechanism, and I knew that I shouldn't pull on it. Don't pull on it Greg. Don't do it. Don't. As I said that to myself, I knew I should just go back into town and see if someone down at the flyshop had any advice, but I fiddled with it like it was a sore tooth. I twitched it back and forth, and then my frustration got the better of me. I grabbed hold of the wire and pulled what turned out to be a foot long spring out of my 4-inch reel. The reel seemed to work fine after that, which still befuddles me, so we headed down to the river. I guess I'll find out how my reel handles when I catch my first big rainbow this summer. I didn't really do any fishing to talk about that day... I described that experience in my last post, so let me skip to the part where I was getting out of my fishing boots and again freaking out about the possibility of my truck exploding. I put my hand into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out my dripping wet cell phone and wallet. I tried the blow dryer on them both, after all it works on Ruby's butt, right? It sort of fixed my wallet, but not really. I had to replace my cell phone. Water and leather aren't the best of friends, but water and electronic devices are even worse bedfellows. It was expensive. If you have the number, call me so that I feel like I'm getting some bang for my buck. Yesterday, we were getting ready to watch Smarty Jones win the TRIPLE CROWN!!!, and Ruby was doing a cute horseback ride on my knee. As we grabbed the camera to take a picture for this blog, the lens jammed. It wouldnt come out. It is a brand new digital camera that we spent a fair amount of money on right before Ruby was born. We justified the expense because it was something we needed to document the baby's first few years, not her first few months. After trying everything else we could think of, against Ani's wishes, I shook it. Hard. I know, I shouldn't have. Broken gadgets are really like sore teeth. I have to screw with things, even when I know it'll probably make them worse. The lens now opens fine, but it closes with a distracting vibration. We are not happy. We did take some pictures of Ruby with her betting slips: Smarty Jones to win (just as a souvenir of the first horse to win the triple crown in over twenty years, because he was a shoe-in and would only pay pennies on the dollar) and tap dancer to show (because that's Nora's nickname. it's always good to bet money on horses that have cool names. Don't let anyone tell you that it is not.)
And then we watched
Smarty Jones get beat. Tap Dancer was nowhere to be seen. Sad. Four
bucks down the drain. |
