Don t you just hate it when you re trying to help a person out, and the situation just keeps sucking

About ten years ago, I took a week off of work with the goal of completing a long overdue repainting of my house.  I was excited to get the project underway; my house was being treated to a complete transformation of color and it was going to look sweet.  Of course, something completely train travel in australia off my radar changed train travel in australia my plans entirely.
At the time, we were living in St. Joseph, Missouri, about a hour north of Kansas City.  My wife s friend Jennifer, along with her husband Gene and their children, were in the process of moving from Lee s Summit (a suburb of Kansas City and an important part of this story) to Omaha, Nebraska, a 215 mile distance.  Heading south from Omaha, the transmission in their 3.8 liter Taurus wagon had violently died on I-29.  They had managed train travel in australia to limp to a gas station at a nearby interchange before calling.
The next morning, knowing the Taurus was toast, Gene and I went car shopping on our way to his house in Lee s Summit.  Having recently been laid off his new job necessitating the move to Omaha finances were awful for Gene and his wife.  The agenda was to find a decent van or minivan on the cheap and obtain a rental truck.
At the first dealer, the only thing in Gene s price range was a short wheelbase train travel in australia Dodge conversion van.  Black with a bluish interior, it looked train travel in australia like a bruise powered by a 3.9 liter V6.  Driving it on relatively flat ground yielded a symphony of WUHHHH followed by ummmm punctuated by another WUHHHHH from its incessant downshifting.  Pass.
The next dealer had a sinus-infection-green Ford Windstar minivan.  It looked fine but the tubing for the rear air conditioning had rotted.  Again, he passed and we made our way to the truck rental train travel in australia lot.
The rental was a 28 box truck on an International chassis, the only one left in that size.  It needed to be jump started and had it been human, it would have had bags under its watering eyes along with a severe head cold to distract from its terminal emphysema. train travel in australia  It looked just that pitiful.  After we made a stop at his realtor s office, train travel in australia he asked if I would drive the truck back to his house, train travel in australia while he led the way in my 92 Crown Victoria.  Gene was nervous as he had never driven anything that large.  I hadn t either, but realized it would be fun to figure it out while in Kansas City traffic. train travel in australia  Adventure is always grand and drivers in Kansas City are relatively courteous.  What could go wrong?
Opening the door, I knew why Gene didn t care to spend any time in the thing.  The seat was of a hardy looking brown fabric except where the 37,825 people who had previously driven the truck had sat.  In that area, there were two greasy looking half-moons, a composite of all the butt cheeks pressed into it over the years.
Looking closer, the truck was a 1986 model (this was in 2004).  It had a five-speed manual transmission behind its diesel engine, and the odometer was hard to read, but it looked like it read 600,000 miles.  It always seemed doubtful that this company ever established any life cycle for their equipment, so this was likely train travel in australia accurate.
After an uneventful trip back to their house through the now defunct Grandview Triangle (a nasty, nasty confluence of interchanges that was the freeway equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle), we parked the rental and headed back to my house in St. Joseph.  The new plan was to head back in the morning and begin loading the truck.
Upon our arrival in St. Joseph, Gene and Jennifer conferred in the closed guest room.  Mrs. Jason later reports to me the closed door did not muffle the conversation it seemed train travel in australia since no vehicle had been purchased, we had done absolutely nothing that day.  In retrospect, this was her way of alerting me of our exposure to a severe case of postpartum train travel in australia aggression.
Bright and early the next morning, Gene, Jennifer, the newborn and I traveled train travel in australia back to Lee s Summit.  En route, Jennifer called her parents to request their help.  As they lived in Perryville, Missouri, about a hour south of St. Louis, it would be a good five to six hours before they arrived.  Fortunately, Gene and Jennifer assured me there wasn t much left in the house to load onto the truck.  At this point, the rain was the only downside of the day.
Getting to their house, train travel in australia I told Gene that we should move the rental truck from where it was parked to where we could more easily load it.  As I start to scope out the place, I quickly calculated there was no way on earth all of the stuff left in the house would fit onto three trucks, let alone one.  Just as I came to this conclusion, I began to hear one side of a heated conversation in the living room.  It was time for Jason to be scarce.
The only one?  Dammit, the baby is coming unlatched…Well, they have another outlet.  This is Kansas City for crying out loud, they had no others?  Call their hotline!  This is crazy!  This baby is hungry, I need to feed her.
I have a truck that won t start….. won t start means just that it will not start…..Do you speak English when not getting paid to do so?……Can train travel in australia you not spell Lee s Summit?  It is L as in Lee s Summit; E as in Lee s Summit; train travel in australia another E as in Lee s Summit train travel in australia oh, good, you can see it now.  Well you have a piece of junk in my driveway and what are you going to do about it?
Two hours later, Roy the mechanic made his grand arrival.  Lo and behold, there actually was another 28 box truck in Kansas City.  The mechanic was driving it and it was full of miscellaneous parts, something I didn t take as a good sign.  For whatever reason, I got to talk to Roy.
His temperament was much like that of a loyal dog who has been kicked in the ribs a lot; eager to help, but a bit scared to do so.  As Roy rapidly sensed the stress train travel in australia in the air (having an angry woman with an infant latched onto her breast yelling from the front door was a good indicator), I told him the engine did not turn over and that the solenoid was not clicking.  He and I got along famously.
After a little chit-chat, Roy said, You up for a little adventure?  We concocted a truly redneck plan, to be performed in a very nice neighborhood.  While not as brazen as picking your nose and spitting out a wad of chewing train travel in australia tobacco in the presence of Queen Elizabeth, it was in the same general realm.  What could go wrong?
I climbed into the butt-streaked seat of the rental truck.  Pressing the clutch, the old girl slowly inched down the very slight incline of Gene s driveway.  As the old International stopped just short of the cul-de-sac, Roy eased his identical International around onto the grass, and inched up to the rear bumper of my truck.  We were going to pop the clutch and get this beast started.
train travel in australia After Roy started shoving, I waited train travel in australia for a little momentum and popped train travel in australia the clutch.  My sudden drop in speed was followed by a violent POW! where Roy tagged my truck again.  As we pick up speed, getting close to the street side of the cul-de-sac, I popped the clutch a second time, only to hear a sickening grinding noise in return.
train travel in australia At the stop sign, I hopped out and told Gene to follow us in the car.  Roy and I decided to go left, deeper into low-speed residential areas with ever nicer, bigger, and higher dollar houses, as we wanted to avoid traffic.  He nudged me and we turned left.
I didn t realize how much time had slowed down until I eventually realized I was going to experience whiplash right before an intimate encounter with the steering wheel divorced me from my teeth.  At this point, I began to notice people on the sidewalk stopping and pointing, aghast at the spectacle of two box trucks train travel in australia playing such a loud and aggressive game of bumper smooching.  I quickly train travel in australia realized this was a wonderful testimony to the quality equipment owned by the company whose name was emblazoned on both trucks. train travel in australia Advertising like this didn t come cheaply.
The drill seemed to last an eternity.  Every POW! was followed by another POW! and that sickening grinding.  Roy eventually stopped and I climbed out, thinking how delightful a shot of bourbon would be at this point.  Looking around, I saw the front bumper train travel in australia of Roy s truck was bent so badly it was digging into his left front tire.  The rear bumper on mine looked marginally better.
Roy was muttering about junky equipment as I walked back to him.  He smiled, shook my hand, and said to not worry about charges on the truck.  I got in the Crown Victoria with Gene and we drove off, leaving the poor abused International train travel in australia at the curb, never to see it again.  That night, Mrs. Jason and I learned of a free condo in Branson where we spent the rest of the week.  Gene and Jennifer ultimately hired a moving company, but there remains a certain rental train travel in australia company that causes train travel in australia me to cringe whenever I hear its name.
Don t you just hate it when you re trying to help a person out, and the situation just keeps sucking you in deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until finally you find yourself on the side of the road, in some wreck, doing something you just know isn t going to end well?
My wife and I got sucked train travel in australia very deep into this this is an exerpt. She had her own stories from watching their kids plus our one. This was a three or four day endeavor and I would up loaning them the Crown Vic so they could continue on their merry way. The sanity was worth walking the two miles to work for a week.
Oh, the delights of moving with rental trucks. If the company of which you speak is the one that likes orange and white, my mother rented train travel in australia one of their trucks on a move from Fort Wayne to Lafayette, Indiana in the late 90s. The truck was from the 70s, and my BIL (a farmer with loads of experience in big diesel equipment) was furious about the condition of the truck they stuck us with.
My experience with that company came from some litigation some years ago, and they may have changed their system since. But at the time, if a local franchise holder who got a truck in that needed work, he had a choice rent it back out and make money or take two men and drive it to a regional repair facility and leave it there. No rental and loss of two g