Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Reason We Can't Own Nice Things

So my husband has this habit of buying things on impulse and telling me about them later. And he also collects projects. 

Last Friday, he called me at work to let me know that he was on his way to pick up his "new" motorcycle that he found listed on Craigslist. This is just what we need...we already own plenty of vehicles...so many that we're out of parking space and have had to relegate the Jimmy to parking on the street. We now own six vehicles, only two of which run at any given moment.

(My Jeep and his 350Z are the two in operation now. The 280Z is a constant project with the engine torn apart in the garage, the 300Z is torn apart getting the steering fixed, the Jimmy "technically" runs, but the dash is torn out, and the bike refuses to start for some reason. Hubby won't embark on any of these projects until the temps here in the San Joaquin Valley drop from the triple digits into at least the eighties...can you blame him?)

Plus, my Hubby isn't well known for his graceful abilities. He broke his foot last year on a jet ski, for crying out loud...does he really need a motorcycle? I promptly reminded him to make sure that his life insurance policy is up to date.

So he gets his buddy to give him a ride to the next town over to get the bike and bring it into town. It apparently has a bad battery and has to be push-started. Hubby enjoys riding it back into town, but is wary of all the traffic and is uncomfortable riding it through heavy traffic, so he parks the bike at his buddy's house on the edge of town, with the thought we'd pick it up over the weekend.

So on Saturday, we hop in the Jeep and head over to pick up the bike.

The battery is dead. Dead dead. So we hook it up to the Jeep with my jumper cables and start the bike's battery charging. At this point, it is well over one hundred degrees outside, so we head inside for a few minutes to let the charging happen.

When we come out a bit later, the bike is quiet but the Jeep is still running. We come around the back of the Jeep to find the cables on the ground, burnt to a crisp. Apparently, one of the handles slipped and touched the bike's body, causing the cables to melt...right into my Jeep's grill and bumper!


My poor Jeep is going in for a new front end on Tuesday. 

And again, I will be without my Jeep. I don't like driving other vehicles...even Hubby's...

...although I will admit that once I figured out how to get the darned thing out of the driveway it drove much better than the first time I drove his 350Z. 

So that's my horror story...of my melted Jeep. And why my Hubby seems to be the reason why we can't own nice things.