Last night, his diesel truck got filled up with regular gas. Ladies, I don't have to tell you the horror of this mistake, am I right? Luckily, the mistake was recognized immediately, and the truck was towed home before any permanent damage was done. Also luckily, I don't work on trucks! So while I felt bad that this had to be dealt with, I knew it wasn't going to be me that got my hands dirty or my clothes sweaty. I was wrong, but it was good.
I came home from work to see his big ole truck in the driveway. Work had been started, but not yet completed. He was taking a short break, and getting ready to head back out again. All of the "bad" gas had been drained from the tank, the thingy was no longer attached to the other thingies and it was time to put the filters and fuel tubes and pipes and stuff back together. Huge bummer!
I sat down in my comfy, air conditioned home and proceeded to relax a bit (because I just sat at a desk for 8 hours)! Then Gary poked his head in the door and asked "Can you jack this up for me?" Now, he could have meant this one of two ways. 1. My truck is already jacked up pretty bad, but I believe you could actually make it worse. 2. Can you use the jack to make my truck go up in the air? I looked up at him over my reading glasses and raised one brow. He wanted me to do truck work??? I couldn't possibly be of any assistance!
I walked outside to see what he needed. The truck was already jacked up (in the air), and the thingy (the fuel tank) was somehow disconnected and hanging down from the center of the truck. You guys, this tank was a beast. It was bigger than Gary. It was big, messy & complicated. So my job was to slowly raise the tank (with a simple little jack) up in position, while he reattached all of the gadgets and whatnots above it. Cinchy! I could do that!
As I stayed close to my assignment, and listened to Gary give patient instructions, I watched him. I watched as he wrestled with that tank in the Arizona heat and put that truck back together again. To be honest, I was in awe. Not in a million years could I have done that. I literally would have died an undignified death with the ugly cry stuck on my face. But he did it! And the reason he did it was the best. He did it for our family. And then he changed his clothes and went back to work some more for us.
My goal in writing this down here is not to compare our jobs, our strengths, our weaknesses or our differences. My goal is just to remind myself to watch more often and be more grateful. Taking the time to watch him work reminded me, and I'm glad. Tomorrow, or the next day, I might forget again, because life gets crazy (and so do I), but today ... I remembered ... and it was good.
1 comment:
I love this, and I love that you are blogging again. I especially love your use of the word, "cinchy!" Mat and I actually had a conversation about him using that word when he was a kid and getting made fun of by his uncles, so he never used it again, haha. Now we know where he got it from.
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