Adventures at the U-Pull-It
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I would tell you all the story of my voyage to the U-Pull-It with my sister. Being as that today's a slow day at work (read: I don't feel like working), I'll take a little bit of time to tell you all the tale. It's a good one (I think).
This past winter I had taken my car to the local Pep Boys for some routine service (ah, my little money pit of an old car...I almost miss you) and I was chilling in the grimy waiting area when I got a phone call from my sister. She had just left the Honda dealership after taking her early 90's Accord in for an unusual situation: the temperature control knob for the air condititioner had broken off and she needed a new one. Since her car is nearly 15 years old, the dealer obviously did not have such a replacement lying around. The guy in the shop suggested that she go to the U-Pull-It and search for one. My sister asked me to tag along with her, and considering that I had nothing else better to do other than watching a static-y tv in a grimy Pep Boys waiting corral, I took her up on her suggestion.
So my sister picked me up and we were on our way.
"Wait, wait, wait," you say, "just what the hell is the U-Pull-It?"
::cue theme song from "Sanford and Son"::
The U-Pull-It is a place where hundreds of cars in various states of disrepair and disassembly all rest, waiting for you to come along and pull whatever parts you need, all at an admission price of only a dollar. You bring your own tools, and you pay for whatever you pull on the way out. (Get it? U-Pull-It?)
Continuing on, then.
We arrived at the U-Pull-It, paid our dollar apiece, and entered the Car Purgatory. Or Car Hell. The Place Where Cars Go To Die.
The set up was pretty simple: 2 lots, one for imports and one for domestics. Our mission: find a temperature control knob for a '94 Accord. And so we began.
About 5 cars in, I found a similar Honda with a knob that's extremely similar to the knob that my sister needed, but not the exact same one. (This is important, trust me.) But since it was close, my sister pulled it. I was excited because we found a good substitute for what we were looking for, which meant that we could leave. Immediately.
But why would I be so ready to leave the U-Pull-It?
Ok, I hate to be a girly-girl, but the U-Pull-It is definitely dude territory. There's dead cars everywhere. Broken glass everywhere. Puddles of stagnant water and various automotive fluids. Trash. Moldy upholstery. Bad smells not unlike a NYC subway every now and then. Nowhere to sit, no shade, and the same busted-ass cars over and over again. In other words, I was tired of humming the Sanford and Son theme song, my attention span had expired, and I was ready to go.
But we couldn't go because we didn't have the exact part.
Did you know that temperature control knobs for early model Hondas and Acuras are a hot commodity? They are. I know this because every single effing car we looked at had the knobs removed already. But halfway in to this adventure, not finding the part was not the problem.
The problem was the guys.
We could not pass a car that was being dismantled by someone without being offered help.
Random dude (in barely decipherable accent): Do you all need help?
Me or my sister: No, we're fine, thank you.
Random dude: Are you sure?
Me or sis: Yep, we're cool?
Random dude: Well, what are you looking for?
Me or sis, increasingly irritated: A temperature control knob for a '94 Accord.
Random dude (bummed that it's not something manly): Oh, ok. Good luck!
Now if I were a Southern belle, I would have thought that it was just so nice that there were all these nice young gentlemen around to help a lady find what she was looking for so she wouldn't have to languish out in the hot sun. But I'm from Jersey: I didn't ask for anyone's damn help, and if I say I've got it under control, I've got it under control. So one could imagine how irritating all the offers of unsolicited help got after awhile.
What had to have been about 2 hours (and no less than 10 offers of assistance) later, we got to the final car in the import lot and still had not found the exact part that my sister wanted. I didn't care at that point. I just wanted to leave and pick up my own busted car back at Pep Boys and shun my sister for a few hours in retaliation for dragging me to such a hellhole. We trekked back to the exit, where my sister produced her extremely similar temperature control knob to the cashier. The cashier waved us through without a word or demand for 50 cents or something. Thank God. Then we got back to my sister's car, where we had to scrape off the bottoms of our flip-flops before getting inside.
"Hold up," you say, "you were wearing flip-flops at a junkyard?"
Yes. It was a last minute trip, remember? And as I was scraping off the bottoms of my brand new super-chunky-soled Target flip-flops, a light went off in my head. I realized why my sister and I kept getting harassed during our quest. Neither one of us was dressed for a day of pulling car parts. We both had flip-flops and tote bags (my bag was actually a vinyl replica of a Bloomingdale's medium brown bag with leather straps) and we were wearing capri pants with cute little t-shirts. We were treading carefully through the lot all day, and I was bitching and whining about being bored and hot and tired and how gross the place was.
We essentially had just played the parts of Paris and Nicole in a junkyard themed episode of "The Simple Life."
So, um, yeah...the U-Pull-It: not a fun place to go unless you're a properly attired guy.
Oh, and that knob that I had found 15 minutes in that was extremely similar but not the exact one that my sister demanded we find? It fit in her car. Perfectly.
This past winter I had taken my car to the local Pep Boys for some routine service (ah, my little money pit of an old car...I almost miss you) and I was chilling in the grimy waiting area when I got a phone call from my sister. She had just left the Honda dealership after taking her early 90's Accord in for an unusual situation: the temperature control knob for the air condititioner had broken off and she needed a new one. Since her car is nearly 15 years old, the dealer obviously did not have such a replacement lying around. The guy in the shop suggested that she go to the U-Pull-It and search for one. My sister asked me to tag along with her, and considering that I had nothing else better to do other than watching a static-y tv in a grimy Pep Boys waiting corral, I took her up on her suggestion.
So my sister picked me up and we were on our way.
"Wait, wait, wait," you say, "just what the hell is the U-Pull-It?"
::cue theme song from "Sanford and Son"::
The U-Pull-It is a place where hundreds of cars in various states of disrepair and disassembly all rest, waiting for you to come along and pull whatever parts you need, all at an admission price of only a dollar. You bring your own tools, and you pay for whatever you pull on the way out. (Get it? U-Pull-It?)
Continuing on, then.
We arrived at the U-Pull-It, paid our dollar apiece, and entered the Car Purgatory. Or Car Hell. The Place Where Cars Go To Die.
The set up was pretty simple: 2 lots, one for imports and one for domestics. Our mission: find a temperature control knob for a '94 Accord. And so we began.
About 5 cars in, I found a similar Honda with a knob that's extremely similar to the knob that my sister needed, but not the exact same one. (This is important, trust me.) But since it was close, my sister pulled it. I was excited because we found a good substitute for what we were looking for, which meant that we could leave. Immediately.
But why would I be so ready to leave the U-Pull-It?
Ok, I hate to be a girly-girl, but the U-Pull-It is definitely dude territory. There's dead cars everywhere. Broken glass everywhere. Puddles of stagnant water and various automotive fluids. Trash. Moldy upholstery. Bad smells not unlike a NYC subway every now and then. Nowhere to sit, no shade, and the same busted-ass cars over and over again. In other words, I was tired of humming the Sanford and Son theme song, my attention span had expired, and I was ready to go.
But we couldn't go because we didn't have the exact part.
Did you know that temperature control knobs for early model Hondas and Acuras are a hot commodity? They are. I know this because every single effing car we looked at had the knobs removed already. But halfway in to this adventure, not finding the part was not the problem.
The problem was the guys.
We could not pass a car that was being dismantled by someone without being offered help.
Random dude (in barely decipherable accent): Do you all need help?
Me or my sister: No, we're fine, thank you.
Random dude: Are you sure?
Me or sis: Yep, we're cool?
Random dude: Well, what are you looking for?
Me or sis, increasingly irritated: A temperature control knob for a '94 Accord.
Random dude (bummed that it's not something manly): Oh, ok. Good luck!
Now if I were a Southern belle, I would have thought that it was just so nice that there were all these nice young gentlemen around to help a lady find what she was looking for so she wouldn't have to languish out in the hot sun. But I'm from Jersey: I didn't ask for anyone's damn help, and if I say I've got it under control, I've got it under control. So one could imagine how irritating all the offers of unsolicited help got after awhile.
What had to have been about 2 hours (and no less than 10 offers of assistance) later, we got to the final car in the import lot and still had not found the exact part that my sister wanted. I didn't care at that point. I just wanted to leave and pick up my own busted car back at Pep Boys and shun my sister for a few hours in retaliation for dragging me to such a hellhole. We trekked back to the exit, where my sister produced her extremely similar temperature control knob to the cashier. The cashier waved us through without a word or demand for 50 cents or something. Thank God. Then we got back to my sister's car, where we had to scrape off the bottoms of our flip-flops before getting inside.
"Hold up," you say, "you were wearing flip-flops at a junkyard?"
Yes. It was a last minute trip, remember? And as I was scraping off the bottoms of my brand new super-chunky-soled Target flip-flops, a light went off in my head. I realized why my sister and I kept getting harassed during our quest. Neither one of us was dressed for a day of pulling car parts. We both had flip-flops and tote bags (my bag was actually a vinyl replica of a Bloomingdale's medium brown bag with leather straps) and we were wearing capri pants with cute little t-shirts. We were treading carefully through the lot all day, and I was bitching and whining about being bored and hot and tired and how gross the place was.
We essentially had just played the parts of Paris and Nicole in a junkyard themed episode of "The Simple Life."
So, um, yeah...the U-Pull-It: not a fun place to go unless you're a properly attired guy.
Oh, and that knob that I had found 15 minutes in that was extremely similar but not the exact one that my sister demanded we find? It fit in her car. Perfectly.
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