SMOGGING THE NEAT BEAST

Hey puckesters, woodsmen and woodswomen. Jasper here for a weeks worth of dumbshit happenings. But because of this crap I’m gonna have to keep it short this time.

Just a heads up though, the team is coming together fine. And I did a bit a scouting earlier in the week that I’ll fill ya in on at a later date. Ehh?

Here’s the shit.

I can’t type very good today and figure I won’t be able to for a little while. Its not like I could type very damn good before but now I’m having to use an unfamiliar finger on my right hand. Yeah, you guys got that right, I only type with two fingers. Never got myself edumecated in the fine art of typing. Always was a dang bit more interested in playin hockey, chasin ‘tang and consuming massive quantities of brew.

So bear with me my friends from the backwoods.

Here in the fine state of California you have to get a smog inspection on your cars and trucks every couple a years. Got my truck smogged last year - the old pile a shit passed again. Not bad for Detroit iron, ehh?

Well, the notice on the honey’s little neat beast came in the mail some time two weeks ago. Its fairly new so I didn’t expect any problems. Went to get a new air filter for it but couldn’t find one at our nearest franchise auto parts. Don’t know what the deal is with that so I went back home feeling kinda screwed. Opened up the barn, pulled the neat beast in to do a little self maintenance. Fired up my air compressor and pulled out the air filter and blew it out with the compressed air. That’s about all I could do. Its either going to pass or fail. I’m at the mercy of the dang smog test computer.

So that was Friday night and after a long day on the road working. I had checked earlier in the week for the best deal to get the test done and picked out a place that would be open Saturday morning.

The place was about twenty minutes away back in town. So at 7:30 I left the cabin and headed into town. I got to the smog shop a little earlier then the 8:00 am advertised opening and waited for the gate to be opened. A truck pulled up and a couple guys unlocked the gate and drove in. I fired up the neat beast and followed them in pulling in front of the middle business, Smog Pros, of the three inside the fenced area. I waited a few minutes thinking the guys needed to get organized and then I got out and went up to the office door of the shop. It was still locked and I noticed the guys that opened the gate were at the neighboring business.

Shit, I thought, I guess I’ll have to wait for someone from the smog testing joint. I went back to the neat beast and settled in with a paperback while I waited for someone to show up.

I looked around every once in a while when I heard some noise but never saw anyone else show up. Most of the noise I heard was from two or three crows in the next door parking lot trying to get a tossed out fast food to-go container opened up. Ingenious little fucks, those crows are. They went at it the whole time I waited, but I’m not sure they ever really got the trashed container open.

By 8:30 I got fed up with the waiting and decided to leave. Drove over to the gate and found I was locked in. Fuckin-A!

I tried the business phone number and no one answered but could hear it ringing inside the shop. I looked around and decided that the three strings of barbwire over the top of the chain link was going to deter me from climbing out. Damn! I was laughing at this shit now. I’m fuckin locked in this place and more then likely nobody’s going to come back to unlock the gate until Monday morning. Ehh, whacha think?

So I get my shit together and called the honey to get the non-emergency number for the local sheriff’s office. She gave me the number and I called but waited about five minutes before someone finally picked up. I explained my unbelievable little tale of circumstance and asked if they had an emergency contact number for the business. After some hemming and hawing and need for more info from me the dispatcher came up with a number. I gave her my number and she said she’d call me back to let me know what she was able to do for me.

A few minutes later she calls back and said she had gotten a hold of the owner’s wife and she would come and let me out. They lived in the neighboring town so it would take a bit. I called the honey back to let her know my frigged out status and laughed our asses off for a bit. Broke off with her and settled into my paperback again.

After about a half hour the owner’s wife showed up with another lady and they unlocked a different gate then the one I had come in through. The first gate was a swing gate but this one was on rollers. It was all jammed up and I assisted with the ladies to get it opened enough for the neat beast to get through. While doing so the owner’s wife explained why nobody showed up. Her husband was out of town and the mechanic that does the test had volunteered to do some work at his church for the day. Just my luck to pick this Saturday, ehh. She also said the guys that the other business were at are never there on Saturdays and she didn’t know why they had been there this morning.

Aw shit, what are gonna say? Its really pretty funny when ya think about it - getting locked in some place.

So anyway, I’m trying to un-jam the bottom roller of the gate when all of a sudden it rolls pretty good until it hits my hand that is so stupidly holding onto the top rail. The top roller damn near severs my right index finger from my shooting hand. Shit if I don’t grab the little sucker quick like and apply direct pressure like they teach ya in first-aid class. The blood is getting everywhere and the owner’s wife says that they don’t have any bandages. I look in the neat beast and see a used paper towel on the passenger floorboard and wrap it snug around my pointer.

The owner’s wife wants to know if I’m ok and that they’ll give me a real deal if I can come back next Saturday for the smog test. I tell her I’m fine and I’ll give it a shot on coming back next week. Am I nuts or what?

The gate’s opened just enough for the neat beast to get out so I pullout and head back home while I continue to apply pressure to the dirty rag wrapped around my poor little fingey.

Since I just started my new job the health insurance hasn’t kicked in yet - so the emergency room is out the question.

I come inside the cabin and yell for the honey. “Ya need to patch me up sweets!” She digs the fixin stuff from under the bathroom sink and I peel back the grubby paper towel from my finger. The blood gushes again and the honey gets weak in the knees. I tell her I’m ok and we’ll fix it all up nice and nifty. (Like I never fixed anything up after a hockey game or bar brawl, ehh?)

So we clean it up, put a bandage on and tape it so it won’t bend. That wasn’t enough to keep it from bending though. I needed a splint. So I went to the kitchen and busted a plastic spoon in half and used it for a splint - taping that little chunk of white plastic snug to my index finger like some jerry-rigging expert. I don’t think my old hockey buddy, Stinky, could have done a better job

So that’s the shit.

It cracks my ass.

Get locked in, splice myself up with a plastic spoon, and can laugh about it the whole time its happening.

Yeah, I must be walking with wood …. Or some sort of shit, ehh?