I did a lot of our car repair work that I needed to do this morning.

Changed the plugs and reattached the transmission cooler in the Jeep….replaced the thermostat and tried to find the very slow coolant leak in the Toyota….and started to refurb the fuel rail in the Grand Caravan so that it wouldn’t light us on fire at some point when its slow GAS leak ignited.

The part that I was “oringing”…trying to tighten things up and make the gas stop coming out….bounded out of my hands and flew into the black hole at the back of the engine compartment….never to be seen again.

It’s floating in some kind of alternate dimension as we speak.

Of course, without the part I lost, the fuel rail would really pour out the gas if I tried to drive it.

It’s just a big hole now, so as the gas flowed out onto the hot exhaust manifold, it would also decrease our gas mileage in a big way.

I guess that this escapade was successful in making me reevaluate what kind of a foul mouthed…. Christian I espouse to be.

What a bad example I am!!

What a vocabulary expander!!

I was like a rabid little Rumpelstiltskin….dancing around on the gravel….cursing a blue streak because I’d just grounded our family vehicle for a good long time….because the part that I was trying to fix is a pain in the rear to get at and because it’s only available from the dealer….who can only do a two-day order on Monday….so the earliest I’d get it is Tuesday….but I can’t order it from the cheap place because then it would get here on Thursday….and we can’t wait that long for the minivan to be running again.

We can’t wait.

The thing about doing something like that is that because I needed to get at things from the top of the engine, I didn’t put the minivan up on the ramps….so I couldn’t crawl around in the gravel and reach up into the bowels of the beast from below….possibly finding the dime sized piece of brass colored metal….the little cap that flew out of my grasp.

I couldn’t do that.

The best I could do was to do my famous Mr. Fantastic stretchy routine and bend my arms in ways no man should ever have to do….and try and reach the piece I’d lost by closing my eyes and feeling around in the sharp corners and grease.

All that did was open multiple wound sites and pack them with 200,000 miles worth of bacteria and crud.

I don’t know where that part flew off to.

Smooth is only smooth until a part goes to the darkest side.

My best laid plans leave me SWEARING in my driveway.

Swearing.

Later, we had some good hamburgers….I had a beer….and things felt better.

It is what it is….we’ll get it fixed….the whole fuel rail….and I’ll have them do the back valve cover gasket while they have everything torn apart.

It’ll be good.

You’ll see.

It will be good.

“peace in the valley” Dawes