Pick-A-Part-athon

Over the past few weeks my car has been running really rough. Anytime the engine was running the smell of gasoline would flood through the vents in my car. Unfortunately the windows don't roll down... yes the car is THAT bad! So whenever I'd drive anywhere, I would tend to get dizzy and a little nauseous. After enough complaining (actually the car was overheating AGAIN, and it HAD to be fixed) Randy finally went out and looked at my car. He found that I had a leak in one of my fuel lines and it was actually squirting gas all over my engine when I drove. I still wonder how I avoided blowing myself up on the freeway. Over the weekend we thought he had fixed the problem, only to discover yesterday that it had actually gotten worse. After no luck at the auto part store and being outrageously over-charged at the dealership, Randy suggested that we head on down to the local Pick-A-Part to see if we could find a replacement fuel line. Since I (ok, Randy) didn't think it was totally appropriate for me to watch TV in my underwear while he was out fixing my car, I decided (it was strongly suggested) that I should go along.

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We arrived around noon at the Ontario Pick-A-Part. It was instantly obvious that I had the only matching set of chromosomes for 10 square miles. In addition, flip-flops were clearly a poor fashion choice for this particular event. (I made sure to mention both of these facts about every five minutes.)

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After paying our entrance fee I asked:

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"So, Randy, what exactly do we get for our entrance fee?"

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"We get to walk around and look for the part" He informed me.

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"Are you freaking serious? That's it? Do they at least give us a map and a soda? You'd think they'd put a churro cart out here or something. Maybe sell a few snacks. What does that entrance fee go to anyways? New dirt flooring?"

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"Just shut up and look for a Dodge Neon" He grumbled.

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What we failed to notice upon our arrival was the lovely piece of cardboard taped to a stick with a hand-drawn map of the facility. Evidently they sorted all the cars by brand. We, however, just started walking up and down the rows of cars, like complete idiots would. My tactic was, as usual, to indirectly annoy my husband so that he'd never suggest my participation in the Pick-A-Part-athon ever again.

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After ten minutes of searching (and complaining... mostly me) we were still unable to find any Neons. So I decided to have a little fun.

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"OOHHHH... I see one... over here!" I'd lie

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"Nope" Randy would state "That's a Honda"

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"Oh, sorry.... wait, I see one way down there"

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"Nope" Randy would state, "That's another Honda, and you are an idiot"

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This little charade went on for another 10 minutes. Just as Randy was about to blow, we managed to blindly stumble upon the Neon department. Quickly Randy reached into his back pocket to pull out some thin plastic gloves (the kind we use at the hospital) I had to hide my giggles. Randy is totally a manly man. He can fix cars, repair appliances, build homes, and all of that other manly stuff, but he absolutely HATES to get dirty. It irritates him beyond words. Dirt is the kryptonite to my Superman. So here we are in an extremely dirty environment. Surrounded by sweaty, dirty men crawling into car engines to retrieve the perfect part. And then there is Randy. Delicately gowning up, careful to avoid any dirt on his hands! I had to walk down a few rows to the Ford department where I could finally laugh out loud!