If you have read my previous account of my total lack of success in buying ANYTHING (Trading "Down), then you have some idea that these sort of things are ALWAYS a disaster for me! The following is yet another example of one of my good intentioned deals gone bad. This is referred to by others as my "Classic Truck Story". When I was still married, I had a wood burning stove to help curtail the heating cost in the winter and to help keep me a little warmer, since I'm always cold all winter anyway ( see "Blanket" of Snow story), I went back to our woods every summer and spent a good part of most Saturdays cutting firewood. Since, at that time, I didn't have a truck to haul it up with, I always used Tim's truck or the tractor and wagon to haul it out. Another "quark" of mine is that EVERYTIME I borrow something, I manage to have little mishaps that cause damage! Just for example, one time I had Tim's truck and I hit a tree and dented the rear fender. Another time I backed into a tree with the driver's door partially open (to see in order not to do what I did) and I hit another tree and sprung the door. Another time I had the tractor and wagon and on the way back to the woods I ran over something and got a flat (the big tire of course) on the tractor! Another time I hit a tree and broke a mirror off..... well, you get the idea! I figured that what I needed was my own truck so I could destroy my OWN equipment and with the money I'd save in repairing someone else's, I could buy my own! Ah, a noble unselfish gesture on my part you may think. Well, my ex wife didn't think it was either a noble or sensible idea (she never thought ANY of my ideas were)! (In fairness to her, a lot of them weren't, but I thought this one was!) Even though I was making an average living from my County job, I also spent several years in the Naval Reserve and always put all the money from both jobs into the living expenses, I never bought anything for myself, so I figured I was due to get something for myself. Even that was to lower heating bills. This didn't impress her at all! She didn't think I needed to buy a truck, even though by now I could have bought one with all the repair bills I paid on Tim's equipment! She said it was a waste of money because NOTHING I ever bought used ever worked right, etc. I figured that I'd "take the bull by the horns" and take the initiative and look for a "cheap pickup" anyway. I finally found one for $200.00! (this was I believe in 1986). One Saturday when she planned a day of shopping, I got a ride to the guy's place and wrote him a check and bought the truck. I proudly started on my way home to surprise her and to show that for ONCE I would prove her wrong! Also, the guy said that the deal was "as is" and there would be no refund! No problem! Well, to make a long story shorter, I never made it home with the truck! About 2 miles away from home I noticed smoke coming into the cab and figured it must be just oil on the manifold. At a back road intersection, the truck suddenly grinded to an abrupt halt. I jumped out and quickly opened the smoking hood and to my horror discovered that the whole engine was on fire! Luckily, someone quickly called the Fire Dept. and they got on the scene very quickly and doused the fire. The whole engine was destroyed and they called a tow truck to haul my "new truck" back to our woods to a clearing we call "Zemke Land", where all the old equipment is eternally parked to provide homes for bees, rodents, and other small animals. It is still sitting there to this day. When my "ex" got home and saw the $45.00 towing bill on the table, I confessed the whole story, that I had gone ahead and bought a truck anyway and that it had burned up on the way home, and that there was no refund, and it cost $45.00 to tow it! I don't have the words to adequately describe her reaction, but I'm pretty sure that's the day she started to entertain thoughts of looking in the Yellow Pages under "Attorneys"! (There's a post script to this story). I told the "guys at work" I was going to buy an old truck for a "really great deal" and bring it home Saturday, and one of them heard the Saturday fire call for "a truck on fire" at the intersection of Huff and Chapin Roads, and he said, "I just KNEW it was you" (IT WAS)!
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