Random stuff

So a couple of weekends back I went to meet my bro in Pittsburgh and he let me take his pick-up truck. Wonderful gift as this city is horrible to live in without a way of getting around. Just around that time I had to give up hope of my roommate ever returning.

On 23rd March my roommate took off ostensibly for Chicago. At that point, I had no inkling that it might be the last time I ever saw him. Later that day, his girlfriend dropped by my house and asked for him. When I told her he'd left for Chicago she broke into tears and asked me if he was going to return. Well, I thought those were rather odd questions and told her of course he would return by Mar 30th and she ran off. Well, Mar 30th came and went, and no sign of him. Couldn't be reached by cellphone, didn't reply to email, people at his place of work thought he was in Denver and headed for Texas eventually. Of course, I discovered he hadn't signed the lease which he had promised to do so I could not hold him responsible legally. And apparently, the two utilities he had in his name were holding me responsible for the unpaid bills because regardless of whose name they were in since I am on the lease I am enjoying their use.

Yesterday, the truck I am using refuses to start. So I am trying and trying, and it isn't starting. So my neighbor is listening to me struggling and comes by and says, "My daughter says if you keep doing that you'll flood the engine and possibly damage it". So I am like, "Okay, does your daughter also know what to do?". She runs inside and asks her and comes back and says, maybe wait 30-45 minutes and try again. Well, then I stood looking at the truck and she asked me if I had to be somewhere and if they could give me a ride. I said thanks and took the offer. Turns out her daughter's just turned 19 and is a kind of taciturn girl. They got me halfway to school and I took a bus the rest of the way.

Well, I come back from school later at night and try starting the truck again and well no-go. It seemed possible that I had indeed flooded the engine so I tried the "Clear flood procedure" but again no go. I give up for the night and decide to tackle it later the next day. Next day, I read more on the problem online and discover that it may be that the spark plugs are covered with carbon and not firing properly. SO I open the hood and try to figure out where the spark plugs are. So my neighbor again comes out and asks if I figured out what was wrong, I said it may be the spark plugs and I am trying to figure out where they were. So she said maybe her daughter knows, and runs back inside. It is kind of funny having to go through the mom all the time. Anyway, te mom comes back out and in a conspiratorial whispering voice tells me how good her daughter is with mechanical stuff, and she took apart a lawnmower engine and put it back together when she was a kid I am like cool. Anyway, the she comes outside and takes a look at the truck and identifies the sparkplugs. The wires to the spark plugs turned out to be what I had thought were fuel lines.

Apparently, it turns out she, call her J, was quite an unusual girl. J was scheduled to go to a Lacrosse thing with her friends but she was overjoyed to have a reason to cancel that. Instead of going there, she was very happy to get her hands dirty and greasy tinkering with the truck. J also had an impressive tool-chest with which we took out all the spark plugs one-by-one, cleaned them and put them back in. Unfortunately, that did not do the trick. Then we got her car around and tried to jump start the truck but that did not work either. It was kind of funny watching the mom-daughter interactions. Her mom was hovering around and interrupting occasionally like, you are going to get your shirt dirty, and J seemed like she would just explode at some points if her mom tried to say one more thing about what she was doing. I could tell her the anger wasn't worth it but it would have been patronizing. When J went in to check something on the net, her mom told me that she's been rebelling and I told her that its good she's rebelling when its expected for her to do so rather than, say, in her late 30s. It seemed like she did not fully appreciate my wisdom.

Anyway, then she got some auto-mechanic on the phone and asked me to start the car while she put the phone near the engine and from the sound he diagnosed that it was a potential fuel pump problem. Very high-tech. Anyway, at that point it was getting dark so I closed up the hood and went back in.

Apparently, my roommate's mom finally responded and said that she was disappointed with her son's behavior and if I would tell her how much he owed me she would try to get that money to me as soon as she could. Wonderful news. I hope this actually goes through and I get the money back.