Furit Deus Ex Machina

I’ve threatened to talk about it before, but it’s been working for two solid weeks, so it’s time I introduce you to the Mud Dood.

Nice, right?

Well, let’s discuss.

The Mud Dood (its sobriquet christened by the Young Person Sometimes Around These Parts), is better known as a Max II, and if you have one that’s broken down in the middle of the woods somewhere, you should write us, and we’ll come fix it for you. By “we’ll,” I mean, of course, “he’ll,” and hopefully you’ll offer to pay him if he does.

Because you might be wondering something along these wandering lines: “how the hell did these two shiftless nomads afford a recreational vehicle retailing in the area of their annual salary, when the female member of their union’s always yapping about staying out of debt?” And the answer is something in the line of “we bought the bargain basement model, found neglected on some guy’s lawn, and the member of their unit who doesn’t spent his time yapping on their blogh instead learns to fix mechanical things. Like an oft-neglected Mud Dood.”

Which is just to say, the thing’s great, when it runs. It’s been broken almost as often as it’s been running, but he knows the soft spots of the thing splendidly at this point. Its repair history, in the six months we’ve had it:

— broken axle repair Part I (my fault)
— broken axle repair Part II (his fault)
— detached starter motor re-weld (the previous owner’s fault, but, not unlike a stress fracture in search of a hard landing, he was driving while it happened, so HIS FAULT by rote)
— bearing replacement, I think. I don’t know to whom blame should be distributed for this, or even if that was its own problem, but it left him covered in sweat and oil by the end of it. And, I’ll keep the personal life out of this blogh, but sweat and oil suits him.
— broken headlights, maybe, or at least, headlights that are suddenly not functional, now that the Mud Dood is in my care, though I swear it must be something he did before leaving it to me. Or the connectors became detached somehow. Either way, not my fault.

One thing to keep in mind if you have such a monster, such a Dood, is that when it breaks down, it’s not like a bicycle. You don’t just shove it in neutral for a marginally frustrating push-‘n-tow it out of the way. It’s stuck where it is (generally in the middle of the woods), and moving it requires other recreational vehicles and several people, at least one of whom should have some skills with basic geometry and knot tying, and at least two should have functional weighlifting muscles. These are skills that should not be underestimated.

So, as of this morning, The Mud Dood is in top shape (headlights excepted, and emphatically not my fault), for a much-maligned vehicle, and it goes anywhere. Up the hill, over deadfall, across the leechypond. Anywhere. With a trailer hitched to its back, it obstructs another scenario, involving the two of us humping building material to the top of the mountain, and probably not liking one another very well at all by the end of a couple of trips of lumber. It’s our equivalent of hot tubs and pedicures. A luxury.

When it’s not hurling me down the hill backwards while stuck in neutral and out of control, or broken down in the middle of someone else’s trail, or humping along on the nth broken axle, or otherwise facilitating the death of everything that was ever beautiful in the world, it’s a luxury. I will withhold further comment for fear of exaggeration. For now.