the day from hell

more self deprecating humor 

     i guess if you cant laugh at your mistakes i will give you more of a chance to laugh at mine. i don't know  if you can consider it a mistake on my part as i tried to do  things the right way . but somewhere along the way shit happened , and when it did it dumped the mother load on me. i was using  my truck pictured below, and because my boss at the time , needed another truck to haul his bobcat to below cadiz to a small town down there and regrade a telephone company's parking lot to prevent water from entering building. so i had to use my truck and his trailer and his bobcat to run down and do this work. a friend of mine rode along and she took the shots and we took off and i made it down there just fine, and was heading back and decided to fill up with gas at gas station and were pulling out of a drive when the truck conked out in the middle of the roadway, and with not enough time to get to side of the road. people behind me suddenly started expressing their discontent with my parking situation immediately,  in blaring beeps with arms a waving . i  had my flashers on and  my hand was waving them around as i sat there dead in the middle of the road. the truck would turn over but wasn't starting. i jumped out threw the hood open and started checking for a problem i knew wasn't there when i started . back in the truck and try it again and again.

       it would turn over but wouldn't start. a guy stopped and asked if he could help and i said sure as it was frustrating where i was. there was a bunch of th really pissed off people who suddenly were trapped behind me . and about then the police showed up and asked if they could help.

       i asked if he could do traffic control and let me work on the truck to get it to the side of the road. 

       without the key on the electric brakes wouldn't release the hydraulic brakes , and to just pull the truck off the road and into a nearby parking lot was a major effort with the police getting more irritated and wanting me to get it going or tow it. 

      well i thought if i poured some gas down the carburetor we could possibly get it started well the guy who as pouring ended up with a pool of gasoline on the hot manifold , and when i tried the engine not seeing the spilled gas the truck tried to start and backfired spouting flames out the carburetor throat igniting the gas on the top of the engine and flamed out about 4 feet sending us in different directions until the flame subsided from lack of fuel and instead set out to cause as much damage before it finally died down. i decided i couldn't wait for the flames to subside and ripped my shirt off and threw it on the flames putting it out by smothering but not before it singed those nice holes into them. 

       well this didn't impress the policeman or my friend who decided for her best protection to take a seat on the curb far away from the truck and away from the full gas tank she was sitting above in the cab. somewhere a fire extinguisher appeared after the fire was out and amazingly damages were only slight. i was able to get the fire out before my new friend who helped me torch my truck , was able to call the fire department , in  his other job. he was a volunteer firefighter , he told me as we were now able to release the brakes as in my haste of being able to get the truck running briefly i was able to release the brakes and now we were able to pull it and the trailer off the road. with a chain and the help of the firefighters truck we pulled it maybe 60 feet into a vacant parking lot of a building to sell. whew i was off the road but not home or out of cadiz. 

      convinced it was a gas problem i tried everything from buying another regular  gas pump to buying an electric gas pump which finally allowed me to get the truck home. 3 trips to the auto parts store and 6 hrs of intense wrench twisting i was able to get it started and finally made it back to my bosses shop where she took the pic of me in this t -shirt. this guy who helped me down there was a blessing as i doubt i could find anyone in cadiz so willing to help. maybe but i was sure lucky. took a carved bear with a fish down the next day and he treated us to a tour through the cadiz fire department . it was real treat and my thanks and appreciation still goes out to him. 

        sorry i wasn't able to take pics of me beating the flames down with my t-shirt bare chested in cadiz on a hot august afternoon with angry drivers waving their arms out windows, but hey i was busy. i was told it was a sight to see. especially the cops face and his look of dismay thinking he was going to have at least another hour of traffic control till they cleaned the mess up. 

      thankfully it never happened that way and i was able to drive it home intact and finished the job. i was just a little more beat up than usual. my friend did a great job of not complaining and was treated to some rather humorous moments of me being taken advantaged of by life in general . the trouble was it was my favorite t-shirt explaining what the feathers symbolize in native indian culture. oh well i guess it means put the fire out.