Assembly Required

I am quite proud of myself. We just came inside, Ja and I. We spent the day zoned out in front of the tv watching Knight Rider and Who The (Bleep) Did I Marry on Netflix. About 5pm we went outside to piece her truck together.

It was a hot mess and I would have a fat stack of cash had I paid myself for everytime I said "This is bullshit." The dash was completely torn apart, all the pieces tossed in the back seat of the F150. Someone tore it apart cause they planned to change the heater core which apparently is unreachable from the engine. Through the dash? Interesting.

There was nothing left. The gauges were hanging on by the wires, and basically it was stripped all the way to the frame. Even the glove box was removed. What idiot in his right mind would take out the glove compartment, passenger air bag unit, stereo, and ac/heat controls amongst all else to change a heater core? The passenger side panels were removed, buy the weather stripping held fast. Obviously the workings of a crack head.

There are too many freaking screws. Ja took to the driver side; I had shotgun. It was like piecing together a puzzle. But we did it. Sure it took some hours, and thank God my dwindled tool supply was adequate enough for the job, but we did it. I felt a small touch of pride in reconnecting the air bag and the ac control units. I clicked the stereo back in place. Ja turned the truck on to check our progress and when the air kicked on I was like "Yeah buddy!"

Assembling an entire dash kind of seemed like a royal pain but honestly it actually wasn't. It was rather fun. I've worked on a car or two in my day so I'm not a complete dummy. If a crack head could take it apart, then two sensible ladies could put it back together. In a few short hours it upgraded from a frame to a truck.

We're done for now. It's cold out, it's dark and we're tired. Bad news: there are still a shit load of screws left. Anywhere we could find a screw hole we filled in with a screw. Ja's bright idea "We can take it apart and do it again." Sure, why not? Not much else to do in good ol Lovington. At least the truck runs and looks like a truck again.

It was good day.