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What is good for Charlie Wilson is good for the country.


 The nice thing about (once) needing a big pickup is that everything is stout.  The springs don't spring:  they honestly transmit every rough place directly to the car seats.  Good gas mileage is not a matter of concern:  it is impossible.  Tight turns are no problem, at all:  they cannot be done.  U-turns require driving out to the edge of town and looking for a fallow field.   And the tires are formidable:  ply after ply of something resembling military armor.  I assume that is why I have had two flat tires in about a week's time.  Both flats happened in our driveway.

The first was the result of a break in the sidewall of a front tire.  Since I wanted to return the tire to Costco, where I had bought it, I proposed to remove the flat myself.  The Drivers Manual said the jack was under the rear seat, and so it was.  The jack cylinder was about the size of a can of beer, and the handle had thirteen or twelves extension pieces, so that once the jack was in place at the only place Ford would allow it to be positioned, one could assemble the handle and the lug wrench and raise the whole front end up high enough to take off the tire.

Oh, my good god, it is hot in Tucson in the summer time!  I tested the driveway by frying an egg on it, but it scorched, so I fried a steak, instead, in the shade of the pickup so as not to crisp it up too much.  Then I lay down on the driveway and positioned the truck jack.  I could smell my backside frying.  But I got the truck up, and the tire off.  All I had to do, then, was to herniate the tire up into Mari's car, and take it to Costco, and eventually return with a new tire and put it on.  Done!  Easier said than ought to be allowed.

Then, this morning, Michael informed me that the pickup had a flat tire.  No more of that do-it-yourself crap.  I called AAA.  I had just renewed my membership.  "Really?", they said.  "Really!", I replied.  "The check is in the mail."  We finally straightened all of that out, and they sent a truck to take off the flat and install the spare.

No failed sidewall, this time:  just a screw I had driven over, somewhere.  Costco fixed it without charge, and re-installed it.

It has been years since I had a flat tire on a pickup, but now I know that there is a god, and that it is vindictive.  No unbelief goes unpunished forever.  The good may die young--holy wars demand it--but doubting old men will pay the price for their secularity.  Oh, I am not really complaining:  Costco and AAA are there to cushion the blow.  And there is Medicare.  We can only hope that the government, in its passion to provide some kind of insurance for everyone, does not get its fingers on Medicare.  What would be next?  Social Security?  I say, let the market have its way!  What is good for General Motors is good for the country, isn't it?

It is easier to change a flat pickup tire than it is to change a cast iron mind.




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