Sunday, July 09, 2017

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

My son is no stranger to heartbreak. He has experienced a few disappointments on his path toward relationship nirvana. To this end, he has shied away from girls, preferring instead the company of cars. This has generally kept him free of many of the pitfalls that crop up for young men of his age. He has maintained a close and mutually supportive relationship with his Toyota Supra since he drove it home almost three years ago. He dotes on that car. Which is fine, since there isn't anyone else right now to take it's place n the sunshine of his love.
And devotion.
Which is why I was a little surprised around Memorial Day this year when he called to tell us that he had found someone new. Something new. A new Supra. New to him, anyway. This was a project car. It was going to be the one he would work on in the garage that he had recently acquired with the house he was renting. He had made what was, my most accounts, an amazing deal for this new (to him) piece of rolling stock. He was quick to shove aside any comments by me that it was a "parts car," just around long enough have all the best bits removed and the rest sold for scrap. This was going to be his summer avocation. He was going to bring this car back from the grave and give him two where there had only been one.
I decided not to argue the point, since this is a kid who has replaced his own brakes and exhaust system. He diagnoses engine problems of vehicles we sit next to at traffic lights. He has the capacity to do all kinds of automotive magic.
But would he?
Well, it turns out that commons sense and true love prevailed at the end of last week. He had spent some time helping a friend work on his car and was up this elbows in somebody else's mechanical project when it dawned on him that he had a perfectly good car of his own, and this new beast was going to take his weeks if not months of attention and work to return to any kind of street legal shape. Now all he wants is to seal everything back up and sell number two off to a good home.
For a profit.
In his father's mind, he's already made his money back in the lesson he learned.

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