Done at Co-op, and My Butt Hurts...
Today was my last day working for the Co-op, more on that in a moment...
My butt is hurting (figuratively speaking) after getting a tire fixed at the local tire shop. As I mentioned a while back, I bought an old portable welding generator at the auction a few weekends ago. "Portable" means that the 6-cylinder engine and the massive generator are mounted on a trailer so you can drag it wherever it is you need it. The problem was that one of the tires was completely flat, and with a torn valve-stem there was now way it was going to get inflated. The tire itself was old and worn, but there was a tube inside, and it was the tube's stem that had been torn off. What I wanted was for them to replace the tube, and reinflate it. The last time they did this for a garden-tractor tire, and it cost me all of $18, so I was expecting something in the $25-$30 range.
They said that the tire was too worn out, and that putting in a new tube would risk the tube blowing out the side of the tire if it blew. I rather doubted that would happen on an implement tire that's never moving at more than about 25kph, but what do I know about tires? They said they had an old used tire that had just come off something else that morning, and they could use that instead. Sounded OK to me, so I said to go ahead. When I came back for it an hour later, I got a nasty shock with a bill for over $70!!! Apparently the used tire is 60-some bucks, plus the labour to install it on the rim!
I got them to knock the price down to $62, but that is still utter robbery for a used tire, especially when I was under the impression that it was only going to cost about as much as a tube. Were I still near Calgary, I could have picked up a perfectly good tire and a rim for $16 at the auto-wreckers. I am not impressed. Next time, I expect them to use a lot more Vaseline, and at least lick the backs of my ears while they're at it. :/
As said, today was my last day working for the Co-op. It was actually a fairly quiet day, which was a nice way to end things. Right up until the last hour, when we normally closed the car-wash for cleaning. I opted to clean the car-wash, since the alternative was likely to be stuck on the til, and that would have been worse. I was about half-way done cleaning the car-wash when this lady pulls up and demands to know why the door won't open. I tell her that I'm sorry, but the car-wash is closed for the evening. She starts ranting and raving that the car-wash doesn't close until 9pm, which of course, is wrong. I've been on the late-shift for over four months now, and we always close the car-wash at 8pm for cleaning. Then she went and yelled at Clinton and Brad, then came back and yelled at me some more saying that "Darrel" told her it was open until 9pm. Well, Darrel went home at 4pm, and Clinton knows that we close the car-wash at 8pm. Again, one of these rude, pushy, and down-right hostile people who think that because I look younger, they can yell and scream and bully their way into getting their way. These are the kind of people who make any kind of service-job miserable; Frankly, those are the kinds of customers you can do just as well without.
I'll be taking a couple of weeks off, hopefully during which time trixstir will have our baby. She's due on the 20th, but we'll see if the little one sticks to our schedule or not. ;) After my short break I'll be starting a new job with the John Deere dealership. I wish I could take more than a couple of weeks off (legally I'm entitled to 6 months leave) but I can't really afford to do that (even with the EI supplenments) and the John Deere dealership can't wait that long for me. Besides, just because you're legally entitled to something, doesn't exactly mean that you're morally entitled to it. I guess this is why I seem to get the shaft so often while so many others are getting a free ride on the Tax-Payers' backs. :/
Finally, my reputation as a "fix-it person" seems to be spreading; The lady who's sewing-machine I "fixed" told her friend about it, and said friend called me to see if I could fix her sewing machine, and/or her industrial steam-iron. I told her I couldn't promise anything, but I'd take a look at them. I've got the iron in the car at the moment, and she wasn't kidding when she said it was an industrial machine. It's a Euro-Pro machine, with a big steam generator on the end of long hose/cable, attached to the actual iron itself. As I mentioned before, I've often dreamed of having a Fix-It Shop, and in some small ways that seems to be happening. If this keeps up, I may eventually have to change the business name to "Iron Pony Small Engines & Appliances" :)
Tomorrow I have to get that new tire mounted on the welding trailer (I paid more than 2x as much for the @#%& tire than I paid for the whole machine!) and bring it home, then I have to go back for the swather. I just hope I can get the swather home without any problems. I'm thinking of draining its fuel-tank of any old fuel, and filling it with fresh fuel mixed with fuel-system cleaner just to be on the safe side. Then I just have to hope that the new Kidling doesn't decide to arrive while I'm trying to move the swather home!