I hate when that happens.
So we’re planning a trip to the Rockies with a bunch of Pantera owners. We only have a year to get ready, so all day I’m trying to work out routes and distances and fuel and driver costs divided by the 6 of us in the trailer.
As I ponder the options, all I can think about is how my wife will possibly have room for her clothes if we’ll be blasting thru the mountains 2,000 miles away for week. As it is she has to put a small bag underneath her legs and there’s barely room for a nite or two – never mind a week or more.
Which is exactly why I tried to convince our guys yesterday that this should be a 'guys only' trip. We could eat junk, stay in dives and drive like maniacs thru the crazy mountain roads! But no. The majority of them insisted we had to include the women.
So I come home from work and immediately start unloading my storage room looking for that rear trunk I used to have. Two actually, one from the GT5 and one from my old ’73. I try them in the car every 5 years or so but usually give up in disgust - hesitant to ruin the look of my nice engine bay and afraid to scratch up the paint. So they’ve been sitting there, getting in the way for 15 years at least.
I unload ten years of the kids’ old stuffed animals, a dozen electronic appliances that haven’t worked in 5 years, and start to dig thru artwork from grade 2, some old beds and finally get to the rear trunks. I destroy the walls getting the dumb thing out – and cover myself in dirt and old grease from 25 yr old half shaft splatter on the underside.
Not one to be deterred, I make room in the garage and the driveway and start cleaning. Which leads to Gunk and a scraper and the power washer (which eventually blows up) then I get to tearing out the old carpet. Finally I’m ready.
I open my gleaming engine compartment and start taping everything, so I don’t scratch anything as I start to place it. Oh yeah, I have these stiffner bars and relocated AC hoses and a dozen other parts that are going to get in the way of the fiberglass trunk.
Once it’s all taped up I gently put the trunk in place. All seems good, but it’s hung up in a more than a few places. I crawl around underneath and make note of where it’s touching. I remove it and get out the Dremel and start cutting away fiberglass. On and on I go, in and out of the engine bay until my Dremel is wheezing more than me. So I grab Dremel #2 and go thru a bunch more cutoff wheels. Finally it’s sitting ok.
Next I start to locate all the holes and grommets where the zeus fasteners will keep it down. For some reason, nothing is lining up. I can tell because I’m scratching these freakin holes into the paint trying to find the openings in the engine bay! By this point I’ve had the deck in and out about 300 times and my gleaming engine bay is screaming in pain.
Suddenly it hits me. I go back to the storage room and grab the other trunk, from the ’73. As I smack up the walls again getting it into the garage I notice that it looks a lot more familiar than the other one I just wasted an hour messing with.
Yeah, all that work, mess and freakin’ trouble. Two melted Dremels, a bunch of shattered cutoff wheels, a leaking power washer and all those scratches in my engine bay for the wrong freakin’ trunk.
I drop the other one in and it fits like glove. I hate when that happens.
But that’s what happens when you have no life, lots of ambition and don't know when to throw shit out.
So what do I do? Just to make sure my insanity is not a total waste, I tear back into the storage room, grab everything that I haven’t used recently and made a nice pile for the garbage tomorrow AM. Yeah, this time I load it all in that old, not so greasy anymore, now totally modified Pantera rear trunk. I place it on the sidewalk wondering if they'll actually take it away - now filled with the dremels, the power washer and the rest of those tired pain in the ass tools that needed to be replaced 10 years ago.
Then I got the "right" rear trunk and ripped off the old carpet, this time saving it as a pattern for new carpeting, cleaned it up real nice and got it ready to paint and recarpet with nice chrome grommets. Maybe I'll insert some lexan windows so I can still enjoy the view of my nice stroker and polished ZF.
Anyhow, I still think we should leave the wives at home.
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