Off the Cuff

In the congregation I hear – “all the time.”  That was a retort from church service many moons ago.  This past week I have experienced some of God’s generosity.  The truck sustained hail damage and after the second storm, I thought it would be good to get the hood fixed, so called insurance, confirmed that I had comprehensive, and then waited for an adjuster to assess the truck.  She came, looked, and totaled it.  I was not ready for that answer, I just wanted the hood fixed.  Of course, to be honest, the air conditioner also had quit and the transmission had stuck in park three times on me.  This required me to push on the truck while it was parked on an incline.  It wasn’t fun, but at least I could get it into drive again.  Anyways, we have been through 3 years together – the truck and I, and I wasn’t ready to say bye, but was informed that was possible, or they could simply pay me the balance between their assessment minus the salvage yard cost.  I determined at that time to keep the truck and hope that the check was enough to cover the air conditioner.  Oh, well,  grumble, grumble, grumble.  Time passed.  The five day answer became a week ago, so I called the company and asked what was up – am I still in consideration, or was my paper lost behind the radiator like the war declaration in “The Mouse that Roared?”  I  was assured that they were working on my case and would hear later that evening, or the next day.  They called back and gave me a quote far different than anything I was anticipating.  We were to receive more than I had paid for the truck if they took it, and about 2/3 of that amount if I kept it.  I said with that consideration, you may have the truck.  It was then processed to an auction company and I had to keep it available for them to pick up at any time.  That was rather annoying, granted.  After all, the truck was sitting there, and I could not use it as the auction guys could come at any time.

Well, it was time to find a new truck.  We started shopping and I was thinking that maybe we would get something like last time.  The last truck was obtained from a grandmother who bought it for her hubby.  It was older, but had low miles and looked decent.  That was my model.  We looked, and looked, checked out private buyers and car lots.  Looked online at the Thrifty Nickel in towns up to 200 miles away.  I became rather discouraged with the search and in desperation started shopping on ebay.  The criteria used was it had to be cash (the amount from insurance), be enough to cover shipping, and allow me some leeway to fix whatever when the unit arrived.  That being the case, my bid amount wasn’t impressive, and the selection was even smaller.  There was one interesting unit that was older (1999), but had fewer than 90K miles on it.  I said a prayer  about the search and marked the time.  The bidding was rather sparse and it wasn’t until the last couple of minutes when it started to blossom.  I put in my maximum bid at the 10 sec mark and won this truck for less than half of what I bid.  Remember that my bid amount was low to start with as I was planning to cover the shipping and any repair cost. Now I am waiting on a 4 wheel drive about the same size as my departing truck.  So, I have a thank you God moment.