Hoopty

We had a gorgeous day in the Northwest yesterday. Sun was out, all our windows were open. Daughter, her sig, and both sons were also out. To ride our zip line, dirt bikes and quad. In and around my husband’s blue-tarped hooptys.

Say what?

"Hoopty: Basically, a piece of crap car. Usually cheap and/or broken down. Can be any size, make or model, but must (or should) be embarrassing to drive for some reason."

"Hoopty: A vehicle in poor condition, often large, mended by duct tape or bungee cords. Usually kept under a tarp when not running, which is often."

Steve has a passion for collecting treasures that no one else wants. He loves to go to garage sales on the last day in the last hour because people will let him fill his truck up with ‘free’ stuff. Try as I might, I can’t convince him that it is all the leftovers that they would have hauled off to the dump. And the dump charges by the ton! Of course the people at the yard sale were happy to give it to him. Duh.

My sweet hubby also loves blue tarps. There are blue tarps everywhere around our property. He buys them constantly. I am thankful that our children are always on the move as he’d probably tarp them up should they become stationary for too long.

One time Steve brought home an old Dodge pickup truck. He’s partial to Dodges because people give them away. Translation: the crappy old ones can’t be sold.

On the day the hubster dragged Dog home I happened to have been following him from town. I was horrified to see the moving junk pile ahead of me turn onto our road, then into our driveway. 

Oh Steve, what did you do?

I immediately named the truck 'Dog' because it was dog pile brown. Steve got it running in a matter of hours. Dog was held together with wire and duct tape, and smell terrible. I was a bit disappointed that the chickens that lived in it weren't included. I love fresh eggs. 

Dog resided with us for several years before it died a sudden and nearly instant death. Steve was coming home one night when the brakes on Dog went out. Man and truck went flying past our street, man pumping furiously on a non-compliant brake peddle, and at the next big curve truck leapt off the road into a ditch, then up into the underbrush on the other side. It missed a huge Douglas Fir tree by inches.

Steve walked home and I called a friend to pull Dog out of the ditch. Once the friend had left, hubby ‘forgot’ that the brakes were out and rolled the truck backwards into the exact same spot in the ditch again. A certain hubster then burned up the engine and clutch trying to drive out of the ditch. 

Friend came back and towed dead Dog home. I had a salvage guy come pick it up. It cost us $50 to have Dog hauled off. There wasn't enough left to euthanize.

At least Dog isn’t out beside Steve’s shop rusting in peace under a blue tarp.