Nothing Like Buying Your Very Own ‘Rig’

Regular readers of this column - and there are six of them - are aware that I have been the only person in the 11 contiguous Western states who has never owned a pickup truck. For 20 years, I have been pining away for one.

Well, I am proud to announce that I have finally gotten myself rigged.

Oh, stop that. “Rigged” is not like “fixed.” Get your minds out of the gutter, all six of you. “Rigged” means I have purchased a rig, which is what I have been calling my used pickup truck ever since I bought it two weeks ago.

“C’mon, kids, we’re taking the rig!” I’ll say, to which my son and daughter respond by rolling their eyes and pretending they are neighbor kids, just visiting.

The word “rig” won out over two other words, the “unit” and the “veekul” (as in, “Let’s hop in the veekul and go over to the Seb’n Leb’n and get us a mess of capuccino”).

But “rig” conveyed the mood that I was looking for: a sturdy, hardworkin’ rugged cannonball of a truckster, even though this rig isn’t exactly the size of your average 18-wheeler. It’s just slightly larger than your average three-wheeler. It’s one of those compact pickups.

Still, it’s plenty big enough to carry my whole family, as long as my wife, son and dog are willing to ride in the truck bed. (They’ve been very cooperative.)

You have no idea what I went through to buy a truck. I started off thinking that I could get something for $1,000 or so. I didn’t care if it was an old beater; as long as it ran, that’s all I cared about it.

So I looked at about three or four trucks in this price range. I was appalled: They were nothing but old beaters, for crying out loud.

I know, I said I didn’t care about that. But I discovered a hard truth about veekul-buying: An old beater sounds more acceptable in the abstract than in the reality. You can never truly grasp the reality of a beater until you experience it with all of your senses. You need to smell the 14 years worth of spilled Coors in the cab; feel the grease-cakes on the upholstery; see the road’s centerline flashing by through the rust-hole in the floorboard; hear the buzz-saw screech of metal-on-metal from the vicinity of the transmission.

So I decided to go up to the $2,000 to $3,000 range. I found an ‘85 Ford Ranger with 108,000 miles that I liked. It had an extremely attractive canopy. I was just about ready to buy it when a friend suggested that I take it to a mechanic for one of those $40 used-car inspections.

“With those kind of miles on her, you should check her compression,” he said.

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” I said. “What’s compression?”

Anyway, I took it in and the mechanic called me up later that day.

“Well,” he said, “the compression’s pretty good.”

“Great!” I said.

“But that’s the only thing that is good.”

So he started reeling off a list of problems: Oil pan leaks. Rear main seal leaks. Tail shaft seal leaks. Water pump leaks. All four ball-joints bad. Both outer tie rods bad. Muffler banging against driveline. Oil in the air filter, indicating blow-by. Rear brakes installed backwards.

“Backwards?” I said. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Well,” he pondered, “they could fall off.”

He wasn’t through with his list, but I’d heard enough. I drove that truck back to the owner, praying the whole way that the rear brakes would, at the very least, remain attached to the truck.

That night I made this fateful pronouncement, the pronouncement that delights credit unions and lenders all over these great United States: “I might as well spend a little more money and get something decent.”

So I ended up spending a little more money than I originally intended. Actually, a lot more money. Actually, five times more money.

But, dang it, did I ever get me a good rig. On Saturday, I performed the act that I have been dreaming about for 20 years. I loaded that rig up, clanged shut the tailgate and … went to the dump.

Some might say that $5,000 is a lot of money to pay for the privilege of hauling old branches to the dump. But they don’t understand the larger issue involved here: I, as a born and bred Westerner, have finally reached life fulfillment. I can die happy now. And if I do, there’s something to haul me away in.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review