A dry long goodbye, they won, shocking

I checked out of work at noon yesterday to handle the SSR transaction.  I took the SSR to work and made arrangements to meet Cindy at the Bonita Home Depot en route to Cape Coral.  She had my Tacoma with the SSR spare parts loaded in the bed.  I used the GPS in the SSR to find Al’s house.  Unfortunately it defaulted to take me the route that was the least distance, not the fastest.  As a result we weaved slowly through Fort Myers instead of just cruising at 80 mph to the next exit on I-75. We finally got there, about 15 minutes later than I predicted.

We unloaded the parts and and all three of us headed out in the Tacoma with Cindy on the small rear jump seat.  We first stopped at Al’s bank for him to get a cashiers check cut for the sale.  I have not been to the Cape Coral area for a long time and after yesterday I really don’t have much need to return anytime soon.  The one word I would use to describe it is, congested.

The bank was quite busy despite it being the middle of the afternoon.  All of the customer waiting area seating was occupied and the line for the tellers was double digit long.  Of course the majority of the people you saw were retirement age.  After getting the cashiers check which I promptly handed to Cindy for safekeeping we headed to the Lee County Tax Collectors office which was nearby to do the title transfer.

I had a bad feeling when the first thing I saw when walking in the door was a scrolling LED sign stating the wait time is over an hour. Geezus.  They were inaccurate, in total we were waiting around two hours before a clerk helped us.  It was maddening.  The number they gave you had a letter followed by a number.  The letter seemed to indicate the type of transaction you were there for.  In our case our number was B148.  When we first sat down the first B number we saw called was B138 so we figured we had 10 people ahead of us, not so bad.  Well somehow it took 120 minutes to process 10 title customers.  When we finally got in front of the clerk we had all of our stuff ready to go, we were done with our transaction in 10 minutes or less. We walked out of there relieved but frustrated the process was so horribly slow.

So we went back to Al’s place where I took off my famous MUSCL UP license plate and installed his brand new plate.  I gave Al a quick lesson on the stereo system, told him about the clutch fluid drain line, and a few other pointers about the truck.  We also got a little info regarding Al’s plan’s for my SSR.  He wants to get it painted in a manner similar to his 2004 which is cool.  However he also wants to undo the lowered suspension which I found quite surprising. I always felt the lowered stance was one of the coolest things about my truck and set it apart from most other SSR’s I have seen.  I am curious how you go about undoing the process.  I have no idea what all was done to lower the suspension several inches, hopefully it is undo-able. At first I assumed Al was going to sell his 2004 SSR since he was buying mine.  Yesterday I realized he may wind up keeping both.  His issues with owning two SSR’s isn’t financial, it’s garage space.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he winds up keeping both.

As we thanked Al and pulled out of his driveway I was feeling strangely not sentimental about the whole thing.  When I bought the SSR it was my pride and joy.  After I separated I had these glorious visions of me and the truck on a cross country road trip.  I thought I would literally own the truck until my last breath.   Well obviously times have changed.  A lot of things have changed over the last couple years.

The death of my Mom and Nicki sort of realigned some of my views about things.  The SSR was definitely a “hey look at me” vehicle and the classic mid-life crisis crutch.  I just did not feel the need for it anymore.  The addition of Cindy to my life also certainly made gaining happiness from a material object less and less necessary.  I’m happy the SSR is in the hands of somebody that will take pristine care of it and invest money to make it even nicer than it is today. But if I said I was really sad to see it go I would not be truthful.

Cindy and I watched the Walking Dead season finale last night.  It was impactful to say the least.  The entire episode you are waiting for the other shoe to drop and went it does it is hard and heavy.  I woke up in the middle of the night and found my mind replaying it again and again. Crazy.

I saw this morning Villanova won the NCAA college basketball championship game last night which I know I should be really excited about since the small school is from my hometown area.  I am happy for the team but I am being honest I just don’t care about college basketball, at all.