The Ballad of Left Elk and Right Elk was so epic that it needed to breathe. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Looking at the activity for that post, I can tell that both of you enjoyed it mightily. Related to The Ballad, in spite of what I might have insinuated, Sir David Attenborough's new joint has nothing to do with my story. Sadly. It was surely going to be my ticket out of obscurity into the harsh lights of fame and fortune. Or something.
Realistically, on top of sheer laziness (which is going to continue to be a challenge for something I'm just doing for the fun of it), Laurie and I had a bout of concern as COVID touched as close as hit has done up to this point. We've been careful enough that "as close as it has come" equates to essentially a tertiary level of possible exposure to me and a secondary level for Laurie. It's all good and everyone is clear, but one worries. So, let us catch up on what has been happening with The Titsworth.
The Titsworth and the Doctor
As I had mentioned previously, there had been some structural failure of one of the lines running to the larger gas tank, significantly hindering our driving range. Upon getting home, I arranged to get this addressed. Simple, right? One would think, and one would also be wrong. As per protocol these days, I contacted 4 garages and managed to hear back from one, so I scheduled an appointment with them. It ended up being a couple days down the road which was fine because we were focusing on being home at this time anyway.
The day of the appointment came and I hopped in the van (she started right up, too... which was cool because it had been probably a week of sitting) and headed down the road. The garage for this chapter of the story was about a mile and a half down the road that runs behind my house which is both superfluous and pertinent information. This will make sense soon. Ok, so I pull into the garage parking lot. The van is large. While I have yet to measure for myself, I would estimate we're talking maybe 9 ft tall and then of course 19 feet long. The garage's parking lot was not large. I navigated expertly and landed her the best way I could figure. As I park, a guy comes scurrying out from the garage's office. Strange, I think to myself, but maybe in pandemic days, the contact is done out at the vehicle. I roll down the window as he's approaching on the off chance that he's going to want me to move the van or something. As I do, he calls as he's walking toward the van "It's too big. I didn't realize how big it was going to be. We can't fit it in the garage and even if we could, we don't have the equipment to lift it. You could take it next door if you want... they have a larger garage. Sorry." I rejected this arrangement on principal.
After I had scheduled the failed appointment, I had heard from the garage which was actually my first choice location. When I got home, I contacted them straight away and got another appointment made. I did make sure to be very specific about the dimensions of The Titsworth. This second garage was significantly farther away than the 1.5 miles to Joe's Fail Garage. Assured that this was not going to be any problem, I took the van up the road 17 miles north. I left the van after describing the straight-ahead issue. Hole in the gas hose... I felt it. Just need that replaced. I was told that it should be able to be repaired that day but it may be afternoon, so I got a Lyft home and set in to waiting. I got a call later in the afternoon saying that they verified the problem would I like to order the part? Yes, please. Cool. Should be ready in a couple of hours.
Ring ring. Hi it's the garage. Turns out our parts place can't get us the part today... but it can be here in the morning. Is that cool? Keeping in mind that we don't have a splendid place to park such a behemoth at this point, I was kind of counting on a day or two of free storage so... sure. The part gets there and they'll have the van ready by close on Day 2. It takes me 25 minutes or so to get where the van is being repaired, so the closer to closing time it gets without hearing from them, the more nervous I get. I call them to check. "Oh the van is done and ready. Although, we did discover a problem with the rear right rotor while we were back there. It's kind of dangerous something something whatever do you want us to fix it?" I had in our driving felt like the brakes were not performing at peak levels, but it was also a new vehicle to me, rear wheel drive was new to me, we were driving through the mountains et cetera et cetera. Yeah, go ahead and fix it. OK, it'll be ready mid-day tomorrow.
My recollection here is not crystal, because at some point I spoke with them and they isolated the repair to the rotor on that back corner. The rest of the system looked good and new (which was consistent with my understanding of what it should be). However it all lined out, we ended up needing to repair the rotor and approved flushing the break lines. The repair this time happened on the discussed timeline (not that anything had been irritatingly bad to this point) and I went to pick her up the following morning. We have friends off the same exit from I-5 as the garage was. We'd helped them out by accepting a grocery delivery for them so they didn't have to make a trip a couple of suburbs over to pick up as this co-op doesn't do doorstep delivery for them. I became a delivery van for the day, so that was fun.
Next time we sit down (as this has stretched a littler longer than I intended), we'll talk gas some more. Not much of a teaser, I know, but it's what I've got.
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