I wake up this morning around 7:00 and knowing I didn't have to leave the house until 8:30 for an 8:45 appointment to fix a gentleman's front bumper on his truck. So I took my time and had some fun with my cat playing with his ball of yarn he is trying to trade me for. Inside joke.
All was well when I left the house but little did I know my day was going to go in the crappy sooner rather than later. I get to the dealership where I told the gentleman to meet me and there he was waiting for me. I looked at his front bumper and told him it wouldn't be a problem to fix and with in 45 minutes all was taken care of and I thought it was over. Little did I know that a couple of days ago he damaged his back bumper as well. "Just a little dent", he said. So I walked around to the back of the truck and it was not a little dent. From one corner to the other his bumper was completely smashed in. I don't know if it's the gambler in me or the idiot in me that made me think I could fix this. I'm pretty sure it was the idiot! Right off the bat I start pressing on the bumper and blow out a fitting on my press. So I switch it out and the very next press blew out that fitting. Again the idiot in me decides to try instead of folding and I blow the third fitting and break the ram for the press. Fittings are $8.00 each and the ram is $110.00 It's part of the job and it happens. But I kept plugging along. Finally after2 hours of working on this bumper (it looked worse than when I started). I finally gave up, which has to be done on occasion, and told him he will need a new bumper. He was glad I tried and That was the end of that.
We settled up and my phone rang. A salesman from another car lot. He has a customers bumper he would like for me to repair and the customer lives in Knoxville. I was in Morristown working today. My impression of the phone call was the vehicle was at the dealership in Morristown and the guy wanted to know when I could have it fixed by so he could pick it up. I told the salesman I was on my way and to have his customer there at 1:00 pm. He said it wouldn't be a problem. I get to the lot and the salesman said he would be there a 1:00 with the vehicle. I told the salesman I was under the impression the car was already there and he wanted to know when to pick it up. Simple misunderstanding. I let him know I would be back at one and to tell the customer to wait in the waiting room and not bother me while trying to fix the vehicle. Salesman said he would leave that up to me and then turned to me and said he didn't like my attitude and could care less if I fix the bumper because he didn't like me and he didn't want me to make any money.
I followed the salesman inside to the showroom and asked what I said wrong. He started (rather loudly) throwing a few "F" bombs my way and said he wasn't going to talk to me about it. So I went to the main manager, who heard, along with several others, what had just gone down and told him what I said. The manager said the salesman is an idiot and to be back at 1:00 and take care of the bumper.
I showed back at 1:00 to fix the problem and found it was just missing a part and I decided to screw one into the proper spot. Unfortunately I grabbed the longer piece instead of the shorter and mounted it right into the windshield washer fluid reservoir. Fluid was flying everywhere. Awesome! A crap day getting more crappy. So I price one of those at $100.00 and get that taken care of and get the vehicle already to go back to the customer. While getting in my truck my $150.00 Ray-Bans on my head fall off as I am shutting my door and needless to say it was a perfect hit and they ended up in a couple hundred pieces on the ground. What else I think? It's not over yet folks.
My next stop I am taking off the rear bumper of a Chevy truck and my air ratchet literally snaps in half on me. You know what? It's awful hot out today and I was about ready to go off. But a couple deep breaths and a small stroke later I am staying positive. I at least got that bumper fixed and it looked really nice and nothing blew up on me after that so I thought my luck was changing.
The next stop there wasn't' anything to do. So nothing to break or screw up and at that point I decided to stop at Lowe's and get some supplies. This past weekend I lost a nut to the tonneau cover on my truck and picked one of those up to replace the lost one. I get all my supplies back to my truck and put them in the cab and open the tonneau cover to see if the nut fits. It does, so I pull out a ratchet to tighten it up and the bolt holding the bracket snaps in half and now my tonneau cover won't stay open. I thought it was changing for the better but I was mistaken.
So needless to say I decided to quite working for the day and come home and see if I could burn down the house somehow, slip and fall in the shower or maybe break a window. I'm not sure.
None-the-less I'm alive and life is good. Sometimes you just have to laugh about it.
She Was six Years Old
8 years ago
