When your church shares a parking lot with a hardware store,...

[captainsblog]

you never know exactly where your faith is gonna be restored.

Yesterday was another one for the gremlins. I called AAA to get a jump for Emily's once and future car, which promised to be a free fix since they replaced the battery with a three-year replacement guarantee just last year. Okay, two years ago, it turns out, but at least I found the paperwork on it.  It jump-started just fine, but while the readouts said it was holding a charge okay, it wasn't getting enough juice to crank the car unassisted even after the jump. An hour, several restarts and zero replacement batteries later, he told me to leave it running for an hour, spending at least of that time driving it, and to have the alternator checked out. Since the car already has an underside repair for which the part, new, would exceed the value of the entire car (we have a used one lined up which makes the repair borderline worth it), I am loath to sink in any more scratch beyond that if it's not gonna last at least through next year. It was grumpy for its first few miles around the block- and that's as far as I repeatedly drove it, its 2008 inspection sticker being a can't-miss ticket- but it started up late yesterday and it's at least lived to annoy me another day.

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In so doing, it is not without company. Remember WALL-E? Not the robotic one but the push-mower we named in his honor last May after our prior gas mower got an irreparable hole in its crank case and the then $4 gas bought me off of replacing it with a like-kind model.




Yeah, him. Well, my old pal finally got out to do some grass-chawin' yesterday, and while the front yard was fine, I'd once again waited about a week too long to tackle the far-faster-growing grass in the back. About a third of the way through the infield, WALL-E decided that life needed to imitate art in ways other than his name, and he proceeded to blow one of his most important vital parts: the top of the left handle cracked neatly at the screwhole and came off in my hand as I tried to push him through a particularly thick section of overgrown swamp. This time, though, there was no Eve to look after him, nor a stash of replacement B&L parts to raid.

Ah, but there was Ed Young's, the corner hardware store I mentioned last week around the time of my previous round of home improvement follies. I'd bought him there last May after Sears turned out to have, literally, not a single self-propelled unit it was willing to sell me, but I could not find the warranty paperwork in our usual stash of such things. (Found, and discarded, a number of manuals for cassette and VCR players we haven't owned this century.)

After briefly offering to epoxy the handle back together, the clerk looked at the extent of the break and thought better of it. He could order the replacement from Great States tomorrow, and it'd be in by midweek. Fine by me.

Here, though, is where the message of "going the extra mile" somehow wafted over from the church. Dude said something about "not making you wait," and proceeded to strip the handle off his floor sample (the only one he had, just as WALL-E was the only one they had a year ago, sparing me the joys of Some Assembly Required even then), installing it on my beloved sodmurderer in no time.

Cost of this repair to me? Zero. Reputation of Ed Youngs Hardware, Main between Mill and Oakgrove in the village of Williamsville? Priceless.

Of course, now I get to go out there and have at it again. I may actually weed-whack in some of the tougher areas before putting WALL-E back into action. Either that or I'll clear the whole lawn off with a flamethrower and we'll sit back together and watch "Easter Parade" in the living room.

Comments

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

I'll suggestive a popular alternative here: goats. Simply move the stake from time to time. And watch out for coyotes over the hill.