I did it so you don't have to. |
How many wheel bearings am I going to have to replace this trip? I should ask how many FUCKING WHEEL BEARINGS AM I GOING TO REPLACE? The number is up to 5. Really exhausting. At one point I was reading the number KML 88128 serial number off the outer side of the disintegrating bearing and the sun was about 20 seconds from descending below a volcano and I thought that if there were some prophecy that if a gypsy reads the wheel bearing serial number at the exact moment the sun is setting on a certain day then some mystery is revealed. I was alone on a grassy hill, tools spread out, injured from hitting my arm on the wood stove, desperate, broken, lost, and trying to find out what part I would need to hitchhike to Mexico to find and then return with it and I could read the numbers mere seconds before the sun set. No mystery was revealed. The sun set, it got dark, I lost parts in the grass and then dogs came out to haunt the shadows. Swearing was futile. Gypsies don't die, they simply lose everything and become ghosts to the waking world. It's bullshit. One day from my destination and fate refuses to cooperate. I was content to keep going but there was a major fuel problem from crappy gasoline and clogged fuel lines and sputtering and dying on steep mountain roads and in the process of trying to fix that I notice there is more differential fluid coming down the tire that I had just replaced the seal...and I see that my repair failed or the shaft is too scored...and later see that the whole bearing has now failed, which explains the sound I was hearing for the past 2 weeks. Two quick punches to the gut that threw my whole day upside down. Not to mention that I have a whole planned essay entitled "Semana Santa in Central America or Why Jesus Forced Me To Sell My Van." It's all true, Jesus forced me to sign the title over to someone in order to import it to Guatemala.
Why didn't fate just let me keep driving and surprise me with a frozen wheel bearing on some steep mountain pass? I leave you with that question.