The Importance of a Pick 'em Up

Tres, thanks for the note (previous post). It pleases me greatly to find other people out there who are collecting 'junk' and rehabbing 'junky' homes. Sometimes I wish I could find other people around here who had the same passion on such an obsessive basis.

My fiancee's father is a car guy. He has his welders and oxy-acetalene torches. He has his sand blaster and his tool-outlined peg board. He has his 48 Ford with a Dodge Chassis and a 350 monster hot rod engine, all custom built. And he has his pristine, near mint pick 'em up truck, as my fiancee loves to call it (must've gotten ingrained during childhood). He won't even drive either of them if it's precipitating, and in Chicago, chances are that something like that is happening during about 8 months of the year.

I'm a house guy. I have my hammers and my screw drivers. I have my cheap, $79 table saw and my Mikita hammer drill. I've got my $500 dewalt cordless drill-circular-sawzall-light pack and my $600 dewalt compound-miter, radial arm trim saw (*sweeeeeeeeet*). BUT I DON'T HAVE A GOD DAMNED PICK UP TRUCK.

What was I thinking? Since I've been renovating my current property, I've bought 2 vehicles, niether a pick up truck. Where were the smart family members, relatives, and friends who should have told me "Get a pick up truck, you idiot. Cars are for women and seniors." So instead of a pick up I bought a 94 Nissan Pathfinder, which just two months ago I gave to the Kidney Foundation as a donation because it crapped out. That was a nice net loss of about $6k.

People, if I mention one thing that is acutally read, as of right now it is this: If you're doing any kind of construction on a constant or hobby basis, GET A GOD DAMNED PICK UP TRUCK! Make it a beater, buy it for a couple thousand and don't drive it florida (unless you're going to get that historic mantle from some mansion in "Gior-Gia.") It's a tool just like all the other ones you've accumulated. And you'll thank me for the advise.