The Buffalo

In order to regain some equilibrium, yesterday I drove my little truck to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  To donate it.  I really don’t know what to do.  Various people have asked me if it is for sale and my answer is always no.  Always.  Because the thing was so poorly constructed out of brittle, weak materials.

Oh, I can hear you ask, perhaps, Doesn’t it have some good qualities?  Good gas milage?  Well, I suppose it does.  Trouble is, how would I tell?  I can hardly read the odometer because the plastic cover is cloudy and its display is in kilometers anyway.  Oh, I could do the math, I just don’t feel inclined to do so.  I think it gets good milage.  The four cylinder, fuel-injected engine is right beneath the cab.  Where else?

I got the truck in, maybe, 2009 for my birthday!  Our daughter and her family were moving from Billings to Laurel, so I was glad to have a funky little truck.  Brand:  Tatanka.  Yes, it means buffalo.  Chinese.  I’ve posted a photograph.

Took me about two years to get the title.  So the truck had to stay in the garage.  The salesman tried to get me the title until he got busted for something else.  I think maybe he went to jail for his part in a cocaine ring that involved a dentist.  Or else he is in hiding somewhere as an informant.  You know, witness protection.  Several years ago guy from the Highway Patrol came to our house and helped me apply for a bonded title, the which I got.

Mechanically, the first to fail was the windshield washer, but I whittled a rubber gasket.  Then the outer driver side door handle broke off.  I whittled a replacement.    The inner handle was next.  More whittling.  Then the brakes failed.  I got ahold of a fellow named Buckie LeBoeuf in Sulphur, Louisiana, who sold me a master cylinder. Then the gearshift cable failed.  Buckie saved me again.  Then the master cylinder again.  Buckie.  Then the crankcase pulley failed.  This took Buckie a couple of months to get a replacement through customs from China.

That’s why I don’t want to sell it.