Saturday, August 29, 2009

UBS (Ugly But Satisfactory)

My golf mentor described my usual shot as this! Particularly so if I hit a tree, bounced on the rough and ended up in the middle of the fairway. The pianist described the pies I make as this! She says they taste as good as hers, but she carefully makes her pastry of even thickness and scallops the edges with geometric evenness which I, of course, do not do. I had an old Toyota truck that rusted out because I hauled seaweed in it from the beach, augmenting my compost pile. One day I went to the dump with a bunch of garbage and as I was backing up, the corner of my front bumper caught the front end loader that was parked on the dump road. It bent the end of my bumper forward about 70 degrees. It wasn't that big a deal for me because my truck over the years had become a "beater". It fitted in with a lot of the vehicles on Lotus Island. It gave me a sense of belonging! I ignored the appearance but the pianist was after me to fix my UBS bumper. We , at that time did not have an auto bodyshop on the island that I knew about, so I pulled in to the service station and asked the mechanic if there was a local place to take it. He looked at the bumper and then at me and said abruptly, "Get out"! I felt a bit cowed, as he seemed stern. I got out with alacrity. I didn't want him to be mad at me. He got in the truck and drove it a short distance to a telephone pole, positioned the bent bumper against the pole and gunned the truck. My bumper was bent back almost perfectly! " There you are !" he said with a smirk. The pianist still considered my truck a UBS truck, but with an acceptable bumper!

1 comment:

  1. Ah yes and I recall a station wagon on its last legs as the family "truck" which, after a spillage of liquid fish fertilizer was SBF: stinky but functioning.

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