It's so easy to go
take a car to a mechanic. It's so easy to go out and buy filters and oil in an
effort to service a vehicle by oneself. It's not so easy to go out and buy
motivation though. In fact it's impossible. Even when I know that my car, poor,
old Bruiser, hasn't been serviced since January 2011. I bought what I needed to
get the job done over a month ago. It sat in a stack by the front door of the
quarters since I took it off the back of the ute when I returned from town. I
would walk past it numerous times a day but I still ignored it. But this
weekend I finally decided to give procrastination the flick and after coming
back from a water run I pulled the toolbox out from behind the seat, grabbed a
plastic tub and slid a big piece of cardboard under the car and finally undid
the sump plug.
I laid under the car
for a while staring up at the oil filter and casually watching to oil pour out
of the sump.
'Can't stop now', I
thought to myself as I realised that I had just committed myself to servicing
old Bruiser.
Eventually I undid
the oil filter. I took out the air filter and gave it a good blow out. It was
in pretty good nick considering the roads I drive down and the length of time
it's been since it was looked at last. I got the fancy
filter-undoer-strappy-thing again and went to undo the fuel filter. A radiator
hose, the cooling fan and fuel lines were all in my way making it a fickle task
and be buggered if I could undo the stupid thing. I did, however, manage to put
an impressive dent in it that will probably somehow, at some point, stuff
something up and create bigger problems for me than when I first began. But the
patience was tested and it failed. The damn thing can stay there.
I crawled back
underneath the car with the new oil filter filled with new oil and put it in
its place. I tightened it with the filter-doer-upper-strappy-thing and then
laid there watching sump oil drip, drip, drip into the tub.
Then I woke up. I
could feel the sun burning my legs. Not good. I don't know how long I had been
asleep for but it was no surprise that I did because it seems that everytime I
crawl under my car to work on it I nod off. The last time was when Dad and I
were replacing the cooling fan and water pump (that had decided to fall out on
the edge of the northern suburbs of Adelaide making the rest of the way in a
very noisy and tedious journey) leaving Dad to do all the work himself while I
had a little nanna nap.
After scolding myself
I did up the sump plug and climbed up on the bullbar and filled the engine with
new oil. Once the level was right I could finally lower the bonnet albeit still
a little annoyed at myself that I couldn't do the fuel filter. I packed
everything away and then slathered my hands and arms in heavy duty hand
cleaner. The oil slick on my upper limbs all cleaned up, I drove back to the
quarters to have forty winks on the cool tiles.
The evidence of my
mechanical morning didn't wash off my legs though in the shower. I am sunburnt
from where my shorts end to where my boots start and there are beautiful,
artistic patches of black to compliment my pink, sun-stressed skin. But my car
is serviced... only 9 months late and I'm sure the old boy will appreciate it
so long as the oil filter doesn't fall off or anything.
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