Parrothead Ramblings

By now, you already know about Crime Dog's Great Grilling Adventure this past weekend. The story kind of carries over......

You see, I went down to Lowe's, picked out my grill, paid the lady and promptly found it was so big it wouldn't even think about riding home in the trunk of my car. We have a Blazer, but some cursory measurements proved immediately that it wouldn't fit in that thing, either. So I called my buddy B.O., who has a Big Black Truck to rival Pirate Rick's Big Red Truck. You open the door, and a rope ladder rolls put. But alas, B.O. was not home. I didn't really want to bother anybody, so I just ran down to U-Haul and rented a pickup. Piece of cake. $19.95 plus mileage, which must be something like $10 per mile. "Just return it like you got it," Behind-The-Counter-Guy says, "With a half tank of gas." So I run over, get my grill, head home, download it, and start cooking steaks. Later, I went out and picked up some patio furniture, just to get my money's worth.

So this morning, I put five gallons of gas in it and took it back to U-Haul. Behind-The-Counter-Guy sends New Girl out to inspect the truck, and she comes back several minutes later.

"It doesn't have half a tank of gas, and I can't read the mileage."

Behind-The-Counter-Guy asks why.

"Dunno. All it says is DOOR AJAR."

OK, I'm no expert. I admit that. But I'm smart enough to know that if you close the freakin' door, then the DOOR AJAR light tends to go away. And that's what Behind-The-Counter-Guy told New Girl. She dutifully goes back out, closes the door, writes down the mileage, and comes back in with a big "mission accomplished" smile.

Behind-The-Counter-Guy clicks on the computer, then asks, "You sure about the mileage?"

"Yep," says New Girl, "Absolutely!"

"So, this guy drove 17,000 miles?"

Once again, I'm no expert. But I can do math in my head, and that comes out to about 800 miles per hour for the time I had it, provided I drove non-stop around the clock. Apparently, I very nearly managed to circumnavigate the planet at our latitude. Didn't see much at that speed, though.

I look over at the inspection form, which has "19325" entered as the mileage.

Yet again, I'm no expert. But I tell Behind-The-Counter-Guy, "You know, if you put a decimal point between the 2 and the 5, it makes a lot more sense."

He does so. A whole thirty-two miles I drove the thing. So now, we're just left with the issue of gasoline. Behind-The-Counter-Guy laments he might have to charge me for gasoline, since it's not at the half tank mark. I pull out the receipt I just got from the gas station, after putting five gallons in it, not ten minutes before.

Still again, I'm no expert. But I tell Behind-The-Counter-Guy, "You know, if I only drove it 32 miles, and put five gallons of gas in it, and it's still not up to the half tank mark, it was either low on gas when I got it, or it only gets like 5MPG in city driving."

He wrote it off. The Peter Principle is alive and well. Behind-The-Counter-Guy and New Girl have reached the zenith of their careers.
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