Junking and job-hunting

Today’s goals were taking Austin’s beater 1991 Dodge Dynasty to a salvage yard and putting his resume into the hands of as many construction companies as possible.

Now, six hours and 74 miles later, we’re chilling at Books-A-Million where the Joe Muggs Cafe is closed because of a disastrous coffee machine meltdown. But they are selling coffee at the public service desk.

We got about 4 miles from home this morning then Austin’s left front tire exploded with such violence that it blew out two big chunks of the material lining the wheel well. He rolled to a stop on the berm of U.S. 49 across from a big Anheuser Busch rice processing plant and I pulled in behind him in my del Sol. Naturally, he had no spare tire.

We had been heading to a Jonesboro salvage firm where Austin had planned to sell his car for $4.50 a pound. I called the auto club and arranged for a tow to the salvage yard, then called the yard to find out what we should do when we arrived. It was at this point that it occurred to them to tell us that the tires had to be removed and the gas tank emptied and punctured.

WTF?

He had neither the tools nor the wherewithal to do those things before the tow truck delivered the car to the yard. So we resolved to have the car dragged back to our house and try to unload it in a classified ad.

When the tow truck driver arrived and found out we were ready to junk the car, he smiled and said his boss has a salvage yard and he’d be happy to buy it if the price was right.

Austin asked for $50, the boss countered with $25 and Austin agreed to let his wrung out Dodge go for $25. He removed the Indiana license plate and bade farewell to the car, pending retrieval of the title from Indiana.

Austin had only put maybe 30 miles on his car since he arrived in Arkansas a week ago Sunday evening from Indiana. That’s how close he came to being stranded en route from Indiana. Now he’s stranded here.

Happy to be rid of the car he bought for $200 more than a year ago, we drove on in to town and had lunch with Maria at the Whole Hog Cafe.

Then I programmed my GPS with the addresses of a list of construction companies and spent the next three hours driving all over town dropping off resumes. A couple of places seemed somewhat receptive, so maybe things will pick up in a week or so.

In the meantime, I’m sipping strong coffee, Austin is paging through a book on Sharks and I’ll go next door to Kroger in a few minutes to buy dog treats and other odds and ends.

Never a dull moment, eh?