I'm glad to see I'm not the only one out there who has experienced 
gross incompetency at the local car parts store.

One quite sad thing I didn't mention yesterday was that I think the 
guy (in his 40's) that screwed up my 14mm tap order was pretty much 
illiterate. 
 
As I was waiting, I heard him on the phone filling an order for the 
Bureau of Land Reclaimation and he was asking the person on the phone 
to spell it out letter by letter.

I asked about the tap and he sorta thumbed through one of the 
catalogues till he came across it.  When it wasn't in that catalog, 
he didn't look in any of the other ones he had (A good 20 books); he 
just said "Nope sorry."  

I then asked about what size drill bit I needed to use to clean out 
the current hole before tapping 14mm, and he found this little chart. 
Maybe he was confused but he didn't really know how to read it.  I 
had to take it and find the size of the bit that I needed.  
(Strangely enough a 12.5mm drill bit!)

I think that's why I didn't get all that mad at him when he hosed up 
and tried to give me a 1.25 pitch instead of the 1.5...  It made me 
sad!  Reading is so vital to me, I can't even conceive not being able 
to!

On a lighter note:

A friend and I went over to the neighbors house to check out and 
possibly purchase that Ghia I'd mentioned a week or so back.  In all 
honesty I estimate it was worth about $1500-$1900.  Little rust here 
and there, missing some chrome and a couple dents, but overall in 
good shape (with a new rebuilt 1600).  As I said this neighbor would 
not say how much he wanted or even expected for it.  He wanted us to 
make an offer first, and of course if we were going to offer way over 
what he wanted he'd take it.  Good for him huh!?

So Rich offers him $900 for it.  That's about what Rich has so spend, 
and based on how this guy has talked about the car, he just wants it 
gone and doesn't really care about it.

"Oh, (heh), I can't take anything less than $3500 for it."

I laugh out loud, and Rich chuckles.

"Well we spent $1500 on the engine, and when this is restored it will 
be worth $10,000."

I proceeded to tell him that in Provo (20 minutes away) there is a 
fully restored Ghia with redone interior, whole shooting match for 
$3500.

I realized that was really a stupid thing to say as the words came 
out my mouth, and he said "Well go buy that one then!"

So we took off and mused about his absurd price.  And here I was 
dillusioned this whole time thinking I was going to go in and snag 
this car for a steal.

Oh well!

- Mike White 

[Mail: mike.white@law.utah.edu   -   mwhite@eng.utah.edu]
Visit my '57 23-Window VW BUS at: [http://cloud8.law.utah.edu/]