A Compound Life. Gary Sr. McGee
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everything electronic. We keep moving, I look around and see clothing, books, furniture - wow - they have food, meats, produce and even a bakery. "This place is ginormous" I said, as I heard a feint rumbling - some distance away - "Holy cow, they’re stocking the shelves with a forklift - unbelievable". "Hey Honey - come take a look at this - Do you think we could get this 4000 pc. Tool set?, just think of all the things I could fix". "No Dear, she replies, we didn’t bring the semi-trailer, maybe next time".
As we continue, I notice that they only sell 3 sizes of most grocery items, Extra Large, Extra Extra Large, and Enough to Feed an Army! (Can anybody really use this much stuff before it goes bad?). I notice another corner of the store, "Jill, look - they even sell tires. I’ve been looking for some new "Michelins" for the golf cart - I’ll be right back". Jill persists with her shopping duties and I catch up to her a few minutes later, "Hey Dear, she asks, can you help me with this 100 pound block of cheese?" (Now I know why she wanted me to come along!). As we proceed up and down the food and grocery aisles, we are bombarded with offers from people wearing aprons, hair nets and plastic gloves, insisting that we "sample" the latest snack food or yummy tidbit that they've been cooking up, "Sure looks good, but no thanks" I said as we try to complete our journey. As we finish our shopping, we go through the checkout line and I notice - they don’t even offer grocery bags or paper sacks. "Hey, what’s the deal?", I ask. The cashier replies, "We don’t use ‘em so we can save you money, but we can get you a shipping pallet or a produce crate if you’d like". Now how convenient is that!?
Our visit to Costco had turned out to be an all-day event. Now I know why they sell Hot Dogs and Pizza. I think this store with the, everything AND the kitchen sink concept might just catch on.
So next time you have to shop and you need a pair of pants, a book, 3 gallons of ketchup and an office chair, this might be the place for you! Who’d A Thunk It?
Maybe next time, we’ll stop at Les Schwab and see if we can buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. Wouldn’t that be cool?
I got a call from a friend a couple of months ago, and we talked for a while, catching up on current events and, among other things, he told me he had just bought a used four-wheeler equipped with a snow plow to use around his home. In addition, he said it came with a small utility trailer. He told me he had no use for the trailer, and said “Hey, if you’re interested in the trailer, you can have it. But, I need you to come and get it today, and oh, by the way it has a flat tire.” I told him, “Yea, I could probably use a little trailer like that to tow behind my maintenance vehicle, (the golf cart), and do chores around The Compound.” I started to imagine all of the things I could haul around….shovels, rakes, tools…grandkids…wow, and I’ll bet they’d love it!
Later that day, I went over to his place to pick up my new yard equipment. There it was, sitting in the corner of his garage. It was a cute, little black Craftsman utility trailer with a removable tailgate, and it had a dump bed! Sweet, I thought to myself. It just had a flat tire. How hard can it be to fix a flat on this little thing? Besides, it was only FLAT on one side! “You’ve got an air compressor, don’t you?” I asked, “Let’s pump up that bad boy and I’ll take it home.”
Well, I towed the little trailer home. Actually, I just pulled it down the sidewalk and parked it in my driveway. I was pretty excited with it. I checked it over carefully and it seemed to be in pretty good shape. The tires appeared to be weathered and cracked a bit, but I checked the air pressure in both tires, squirted it off with the hose and cleaned it up a bit. Wow, I thought to myself, the flat tire seems to be holding air! Maybe the previous owner just didn’t put the air in right, or maybe it just needed some fresh new air!
I went out the next morning to check on the little trailer, and sure enough, one of the tires was flat again. It’s kind of hard to use a trailer with a flat tire, so I started looking around to find a replacement tire. It’s the size of a wheelbarrow tire, but has a wheel with a special hub to fit the trailer axle. I went to the local Home Depot store and asked if they sold tires for wheelbarrows, not the whole thing, just the tire itself. The guy said, “Nope. We only sell the replacement tire and wheel together.” “How much,” I asked. He said “they cost about $40 bucks or so.” Too much, I thought, especially if the wheel doesn’t fit the trailer axle. I asked the guy, “Do you know of anyone who might sell just the tire.” “Nope, sorry,” he said.
I got thinking about who might sell equipment stuff, you know maintenance things and other implements to be used around a yard , a ranch, or a farm, then I remembered about the IFA store. That’s Intermountain Farmers Association for you city slickers, and I was sure they would sell tires for this sort of thing. I called the local store and asked my questions, and once again was told, “No, we don’t sell wheelbarrow tires. Sorry.”
Frustrated, I started checking into other options. Since it was a Craftsman utility trailer, I checked with the local Sears store. They sell the same trailer, brand new, for about $129.00, but all I needed was a replacement tire, and the store didn’t sell parts. The salesman told me to check their website for parts. Tech savvy as I am, I muddled my way through their website and found the replacement tire that I needed. It too, was about $45 or $50 bucks, plus shipping; almost half the price of a new trailer. It came complete with the wheel, but they were out of stock at the time. Too much money, again, I thought. Remember, all I need is a stupid tire.
I get tool and equipment catalogs all the time, but I never buy anything. I pulled out one of the catalogs and started looking through it to see if they had the tires for what I needed. I was quite surprised. They sell just about anything you can imagine, AND they do sell just the tires I needed, and the price was very reasonable. Should I just buy one, and have a mismatched set of tires, or live a little, and get two. Two brand new matching tires for my little trailer! Wow, for $10 bucks apiece, how could I go wrong? I just can’t have mismatched tires on this cute little trailer, I told myself. That would be like wearing two different shoes on your feet at the same time. Just can’t do it! I checked the tire sizes to be sure, and called their 800 number and placed my order for two brand new tires and was told to expect delivery in about a week.
Anxiously awaiting, the delivery day finally came. After all; I have this cute, new little trailer, and it is completely useless with a flat tire. The UPS driver dropped off a small cardboard box at the front door. I picked up the box. It seemed, however, a bit small to have two wheelbarrow sized tires in it, but I took it to the garage to get the tire change underway so I could start using the new trailer. I opened the box, and these two black pancakes of rubber, folded in an odd shape were stuffed inside the box. What the! what the!, what the heck is going on with these tires?!, I thought to myself. These don’t look like wheelbarrow tires. Shouldn’t tires be sort of round and look like tires? Holy crap! I just spent $20 bucks plus shipping, for two rubber blobs! AND I had to wait for a week to get ‘em!
I tried to fashion the “tires” into sort of round shapes. I put them in the sunshine for a few hours to try to melt them back to “normal tire” shape, and then proceeded with the repair. I got the old tires off the rims easily enough, and was able to get these flat things onto the rims. They were still smashed so flat, it was almost impossible to get them to make contact with the rim to even begin to hold air. After quite a struggle with them, they did conform to the rim and I pumped them full of air. Success, I told myself. Too late for today, I’ll use the trailer tomorrow.
The next morning I went out to the garage to hook up the trailer to the golf cart, so I could get caught up on maintenance things and such. But No, I had TWO FLAT TIRES on the trailer. What! This can’t be. How can these things be flat? How hard can it be to fix some stupid little tires on a stupid little trailer?, I thought to myself. I pumped up the tires again. This time I could hear a feint “pssss” sound. These tires aren’t holding air, what’s the deal? I looked closely at the fine print on the side of the "new tires" and compared them to the “old tires”. The old tires were TUBELESS tires, the new ones were NOT. They needed to have tubes in them. The stupid catalog didn't say anything about needing tubes. They won‘t hold air without tubes!