Grasshopper No. 4 blogged recently about the blitz of events that have impacted his life. Clearly there are days when life sucks.
Well today is a “full moon”. The days leading up to the full moon are suspicious for strange events also. Take Sunday morning for example. Your Mom and I had a full day planned. I walked for an hour as usual. I showered. I went out to the car and turned the key. There was nothing. The Saab went click, click (sounds like the train went choo choo)! That sounds like a title for a book. The car was deader than a door nail. Well I don’t handle cars “not starting” very well.
It took me back to college and a book I had to read for a behavior science course. I think it was called “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Ridiing”. It was about two lads that embarked on a cross-country motorcycle ride. One guy was very brainy but didn’t know a nut from a bolt. He was more into studying the cosmos. His bike partner (I’ll call him Max), was a mechanical genius. He could fix motorcycles with chewing gum and Q-tips. So if you had to choose someone to travel through the countryside with, Max was the choice. Max seemed “at one” with the world and understanding the cosmos was not a high priority. In other words he enjoyed life.
Well my Saab was broke. What do I do? What do I do? I called “my guy Max” on Commercial street. He was calm, cool, and collected. Dad, he said, we’ll check the car out. We set a time and I had done all that I could do. Grasshopper 3 showed up with his brand new truck, lifted the hood on the Saab and cranked the engine. It was my battery. He pulled a tester out of the truck and it indicated that not only was my battery dead, it was a “bad” battery. We jumped in the red truck, zipped down down to Auto Zone and bought a $59.95 beauty. We went home, put in the battery, replaced a couple of screws and “varoooom”, that Saab was back in business. My head mechanic was cool and really seemed to know what he was doing. He took my stress balloon and deflated it.
Now I’m not comparing Grasshopper 3 to Max in my required book reading (or myself to the other guy) but if I ever go on a motorcycle trip with someone, I know who I’ll call.
By the way, the guy in the book who studied the cosmos (Max’s buddy) ended up in a psycho ward for awhile to regain his perspective on life. No, I don’t want to go down that path!
So a sincere thank you to Grasshopper No. 3. My car goes faster now!
Love,
Dad