T-Hoe Has a Limp

Like driver, like auto. Not only is Val struggling to hobble around these days, but T-Hoe has caught her affliction! It creeps up on you, I say. One day you're walking just fine, maybe a little soreness in the knee joint, and then all at once, it's 15 years later, and you can barely make it across the kitchen without leaning on the cutting block.

T-Hoe is getting old(er). He's a 2008 model. Heh, heh! He coulda been a model! So sleek and shiny black and classy in his heyday, I could imagine him gracing the cover of a junk mail advertisement. Now, T-Hoe is looking a bit worse for wear, and responding as though he's been drove hard and put away wet. Which he has...

The backup sensor hasn't worked for many years. The seat heaters are kaput, first the passenger side, then the butt part for the driver, then the back. Some plastic molding is peeling off the front passenger door. There's a short in the electronics that sometimes makes the radio not come on when starting up after a stop in town. Eventually it comes back. Maybe three or four minutes after driving. Just a couple weeks ago, the heater started doing the same thing!!! It's the blower, not the actual heat-providing part. The fan won't come on, no matter which setting, whether it be AUTO, or defroster, or face, or feet. Doesn't matter which level of blowing is chosen, from low to high, or the adjustment of the temperature. Oh, but after a few minutes of driving, it randomly comes on.

For somebody who knows his way around an automobile, Hick shows a shocking lack of interest in solving T-Hoe's problems. The radio and heater are my main concerns. But according to Hick, "Val, that could be ANYTHING! You could take the whole thing apart and never find it!" Well. Okay then. I guess that means we just give up and I do without radio and heat...

Thursday, I made a stop at the main post office over in Sis-Town. When I climbed in after mailing three water bills and Genius's letter, I looked down at the driver's side tire, and it looked LOW. The control panel told me that tire had 26 pounds of air. No good! T-Hoe needs 35 pounds of air in his tires. I'd checked only last week, in the cold weather, and both front tires had 31 pounds, which was fine with me, in the cold. Oh, and I forgot to say above, T-Hoe's two rear tire sensors don't work, and need to be replaced or reset or whatever those mechanics do when they put on new tires. Or don't...

Anyhoo... I was headed back over to Backroads, a distance of 8.7 miles by highway, but maybe a bit shorter for me on the back roads. I figured I could use the Gas Station Chicken Store's FREE AIR hose if that tire went any lower. When I got there, the reading was 27 pounds. Understandable, since they heat up while driving, and the air expands. I figured I could make it home, and have Hick do the airing. He doesn't live here chore-free, you know! Besides, I figured the back tires might need checking, being without a sensor.

Hick drove T-Hoe to the BARn, and used his air compressor to top off the tires. He says they all have 35 pounds now. When I start to town, I'll see what my sensor says about that driver's tire. Hopefully, I just knocked some air out on the potholes on our gravel road, and I don't have a slow leak.