Okay, so there we were, all set to take off on Saturday morning to spend one of our last weekends in our place in Maine.

Mary Ellen and I own a place close to the water in Harpswell Neck. We recently put it up for sale in order to pay for our new place on the shores of Terra Ceia Bay in Palmetto, FL.

Selling real estate in today's market, no matter how beautiful the place is, is a very tough endeavor. Selling our place has been no different. We have had two previous perspective buyers who put down security deposits and everything, and both deals fell through. The first one fell through because the buyer couldn't get the bank financing that he thought he could get. The second one fell through when the buyer turned into a real jerk when somebody told him that it was a buyer's market, and he started making stupid little demands that he wanted put into the contract. Finally, I had simply had enough of his games, gave him back his security deposit, and refused to sell to him.

But the new perspective buyers are in love with the place, have the finances, and want to be moved in by Christmas.

So Mary and I were going to head for Maine last weekend to take out the last of our possessions from the house.

I have a Dodge Ram 2500 pick-up truck with a Cummins Diesel engine that we use for the heavy lifting around the farm. The problem with the thing is that it has over 150,000 miles on it, and it's getting to the point where things are beginning to wear out and need to be replaced one-by-one.

Much of the time, this truck sits idle in the yard because it is so big, and the fuel for it is so expensive. All week long the last week, Mary took it out on little jaunts around town to make sure that nothing was the matter with it, and it passed every test with flying colors.

So, on Saturday morning, Mary, Fritz The Dog and I all piled into the crew cab and were off to Maine for a fun weekend.

We were literally a mile from the house. We stopped at a stop sign. Then, when I gave it gas to get moving, little to nothing happened. (I HATE mechanical things almost as much as they hate me!) I gave it gas, the engine roared, the tachometer came close to red-lining, and the wheels haltingly turned, lurching us forward a foot or so at a time.

After a brief consultation, Mary, Fritz The Dog and I decided to drive the thing back home.

Bad idea.

We got about halfway back home when the thing decided to die completely at the base of a hill, right in the middle of an intersection. At this point, I betrayed the extent of my mechanical knowledge by saying to Mary, "Ut-oh! I think the fucking thing just broke!"

If my buddy Andy didn't happen by, we would have remained in that precarious location for over an hour. But Andy, being the good guy that he is, spotted us stranded there, went back to his place and returned a few moments later with his diesel truck and towing chains. He was willing to tow us back to our house, but we had the AAA tow truck coming. So we decided that if he could just get out truck out of the intersection and off to the side of the road, that would be wonderful. When the truck was safely deposited on the curb, Andy gave me lift home so that I could pick up the Camry and return with it to the scene of the crime.

It was about forty-five minutes after Andy snatched us from the jaws of death that AAA showed up and towed us to the transmission shop. I rode in the tow truck with the driver while Mary Ellen followed in the car.

At that point, we decided to press on to Maine anyway. We wouldn't be able to bring back all of the furniture and stuff that we had planned to do with the truck, but we could bring back things like clothes, wall hangings, dishes and small stuff like that. So, we transferred all of the junk that we had packed in the truck to the trunk of the Camry, put Fritzy-boy in the back seat and off we went!

About five miles down the road, we both realized that we had left the keys to Maine house back home. So we turned around and went back to get them. As we pulled into the driveway, Mary decided that she needed to use the bathroom, and I decided that I wanted to bring some beer along for the trip.

So when we entered the house, I raided the refrigerator and Mary headed for the bathroom. We met again in the car about five minutes later, and, for the second time that morning, we started off on our four-hour drive to Maine.

About five miles down the road again, Mary asked me for the Maine house keys so that she could put them in the glove compartment for safe keeping.

I looked at her. "I thought you were going to get the keys."

"I was going to go to the bathroom," she replied. "I thought that youwere getting them."
"I was getting the damned beer. YOU were supposed to get the stupid keys!"

After a few more exchanges like that, we decided to turn around and go back to the house yet again, because, no matter WHO was supposed to get the damned keys, the fact remained that the keys were not "got."

So, leaving the house for the third time, and three hours after we had originally set out, we were finally were off to Maine. As we drove down the road, we noticed the mile long oil slick that our truck transmission fluid had created, and we both commented on how we were lucky that the transmission hose decided to let go here and not when we were 300 miles from home with an eighty-five pound German shepherd and truckload of belongings!

Now, to be perfectly honest with you, it wasn't so long ago that something like blowing the truck transmission would have put me in a miserable mood for days on end, but that doesn't happen any more. We ended up having a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing trip to Maine. We went out to eat that night at Gritty McDuff's Pub in Freeport with a friend, got a lot accomplished at the house, and headed back home the next day in fine spirits and very much in love with each other.

And, by the way, $1906.51 later, the truck and its new transmission and transmission hoses are all doing very well, thank you very much.