Thirteen hundred

I took my truck into the garage on Tuesday to get the brakes and front end inspected; I fully expected to get some kind of seal of approval and be sent merrily on my way.

Boy was I naive!

Right now I am looking at sinking $1300 into my beloved little truck. Albert assures me that it is all absolutely necessary, and---AND---

My Truck Is Worth It.
Yup, he said that. Yuck, where did that come from?

So I drove home to sit in front of the fire and reel. Omigod, thirteen hundred bucks. THIRTEEN HUNDRED bucks.

OK. Moving on.

It's only money, right? And I love my little truck. But having to make major vehicular decisions always leaves me feeling inadequate and insecure. It absolutely scares the heck out of me. So, I did what I do under those circumstances, I asked everybody I could think of what I should do. Needless to say I got lots of conflicting advice. Everything from just do what the man says to get rid of the truck now, this only ends badly. So I got to spend a sleepless night mulling it all over.

In the morning I had pretty much come to some kind of conclusion, but still feeling totally inadequate and insecure I went around trying to get all those advice givers to agree with and approve of my conclusion. I know, it's silly and useless, but that's what I do. I called Albert and he argued with me. One opinionated mechanic, is our Albert. But he came back with a revised estimate and a deadline, tell him by 3.00pm what I wanted to do. And I did. We agreed on slightly less work and slightly cheaper parts for a slightly lower estimate (eleven hundred). And having had twenty-four hours to wrestle with this issue I am content with it. On Thursday morning the truck goes into the garage and it doesn't come out till end of Friday. It gets a whole bunch of new parts and an undercoat.

The conclusion I came to was that, while looking for a new vehicle is probably in order, I don't want to do that right now under these circumstances. I need time. But I also need to get back to Toronto with my kayak and all my stuff, and that means I need the truck, and I need it to be safe. A thousand bucks seems like a lot of money to put into a vehicle you plan to get rid of, but I don't see a way around it that is less stressful.

And I like Albert. His main argument was, this is a good truck, it is worth it. He said they call this particular model The Iron Work Horse, because it just keeps going and going. I feel that if I am going to live here for any length of time then I want Albert to be my mechanic of first choice; I need him to pay attention to what I want, but I also don't want to tick him off.