Junkyard Bob

A sight much like this one is what I saw a couple of weeks ago. For the last couple pf months, I have been driving my Corolla with a drivers seat that got progressively more broke, so eventually I was driving like a low rider even with tow or three pillows propping me up. I finally took a Saturday and went to a local junkyard to find a new seat...thus began the epic journey into junkyard wasteland!

So I get to the place and basically get told to wander and find my part and then bring it back. This is probably a square mile or so of junked cars and the only advice I get is "I think there's a corolla somewhere by the tree over there." Encouraged by this news, I look forward to getting to the tree...only to find there are about six trees around, none of which happens to have a recognizable Corolla sitting near. So, I begin to wander through what begins to feel more and more like a dark and dreary wasteland. Did I mention this was a hot summer day? Like blazing sun beating down and reflecting off rusting metal hulks? So I keep wandering, aislr after aisle, row after row, seeming to never end lost in the labyrinth like twisting and turnings of this auto junkyard, not even having a ball of string to guide me out after slaying the minotaur...oh wait different story.

So eventually I realize the junkyard is more or less organized into types of cars, and the small passenger sedan section is of course off in the far corner, the one place I have yet to look. I search with hope refreshed as I finally see familiar cars, but alas! no Corollas! I climb ovr around and through many vehicles, imagining the tales they all have to tell. Finally, at my wits end...(by this time a short journey) I decide that a Toyota Camry seat looks like it might fit and start using my hand wrench to undo the seat. Much muttering and a few scrapes later, I haul the seat out, luggin it the quarter mile back to the front, managing to only gret lost and turned around onjce on the way. and really feeling Twilight zone like as I haven't seen a nother soul in the last hour, and ge tthe seat paid for. After I get it out to my car, the junkyard guiy finally says.."So you didn;t find the Corolla? Oh you should go find the guy on the forklift. He'll show you." "Where is the guy on the forklift?" Oh, over there, by the tree." Guess what happens next. Yep, no guy on the forklift and me back to wandering the desolate dumping grounds of Detroit.

Salvation in the form of a horn and an approaching forklift!


The Mysterious forklift man appears and guides me to a car that, before it was cut in half and made unrecognizable, was once a compatible with mine Corolla! Somewhere angels began to sing, or perhaps it was simply the sound of the forklift driving away. So, I began again to remove the seat, by hand, and cursed the left handed monkey who used his right hand to locate the bolts for the seat somewhere no opposable-thumbed biped could easily reach them. I also had to fend off the attack of the forklift man, who apparently thought it was funny to stuff another car nearly on top of the corolla while I was inside.

I once again made the trek with a seat to the front of the wasteland, and traded the other seat for this one, got gouged on the price of two bottles of water, and made it home, to collapse in bed before spending another hour in the garage late that night installing the seat...with the help of my lovely wife, and more cursing at left handed monkeys. But now, I am low-rider free!