Friday, December 23, 2005

Big Mac's steering column

Yesterday Big Mac and I called around trying to get a good price on a steering column for his '72 Cadillac when we realized we had both called the same guy, Bob. Well, it also turns out that someone at one of the auto parts yards I had called, let's call him Hosea, had also called Bob. Hosea had marked up the price by $50 and was going to sell it to us for $150. (Actually, he wanted more but I talked him down by $10. It was killing me that I could only get him to go down $10. I mean, I poured on as much honey as I could, too. grrr)

Anyway, after we realized that Hosea was planning on buying it from Bob and marking up the price, I called him and said that I didn't have the money for it after all. Bob told us that Hosea had indeed called him and he said, "First come, first serve."

Is this all making sense? Sounds confusing to me and I'm directly involved. Anyway, we all jumped in my car and thank goodness for the V6, made it to Otay Mesa way down by the border before Hosea made it. See, I'm not sure if he believed me or not. I didn't really trust him. He sounded untrustworthy. And sneaky. Fortunately, I am sneakier.


End of story is we found a Cadillac just like Mac's...ok well obviously it was beat down. But it had a matching tilt steering column that Bob was willing to sell to us for $100. Mac brought his steering column and set it on the back of the car for the junkyard to compare and make sure he was getting the same type for his money. There it is, sitting all lonely and sad on the back of that old Caddy.

That fella with the yellow hat took the hood off the old Caddy and proceeded to cut wires, remove bolts, etc. The guys watched while surgery was performed. It's amazing that this old steering column left sitting out in the weather like this for who knows how long actually works. Pretty cool.

I also thought I'd point out that Big Mac wrote his name (as "Big Mac$") on the back of his shoes with a Sharpie. You know, in case someone happens upon them and doesn't realize who they belong to. And to answer Faythe's question in chat, no, he's not 12.

You may be wondering, who's "we?" Well, me, Big Mac and The Masked Crusader. Who's this Masked Crusader person? He fights for the little people! His goal is to give to the little people and...well you know. He just wants to help out.

He learned the hard way that it's not easy to get that Cadillac medallion off a car.

Even Bob couldn't get one off. When I tried, I broke it. Oops. How did they manage to steal Big Macs? Bob is willing to sell us a gold medallion for $25. I'm going to look on eBay and see if I can get one cheaper. Meanwhile, the Masked Crusader is going to be handing out stuffed animals Mom brought down from Oregon to the neighborhood kids. See! He's a good guy!

2 comments:

Faythe said...

After reading this entry, I was thinking it'd be kind of neat if you did a series of entries about the people you know and hang out with, and the colorful characters in your neighborhood (with their permission, I guess). Like one day feature Apollo, the next Big Mac and his fanny-pack wearing ways, then Tee and how he likes to play his car stereo in the parking lot, and have pictures of them to go with it.

I'd do something like that, but the people I know aren't nearly as interesting as the ones you know...with the exeption of Ryan and I talk about him enough already on my blog.

Just a thought.

Unknown said...

That's a pretty good idea. Hmm. Maybe I will have new person each month since I don't know enough people for each day.