"Real Quick"

Sunday is family day for us. Sure we all have our individual time part of the day but we try and do something together as a family. I have many relatives living close by and often there is a birthday, anniversary or holiday that brings us together on a Sunday. My relatives took that whole bible verse ( Genesis 1:28) about “be fruitful and multiply thing WAYYYY TOO seriously. Some rare Sundays it is just my own immediate family together. Sometimes that means the family is together moving hand lines, cows, rocks or Powder River panels but still it is family time. Nothing brings a family closer together or brings mutual respect and admiration for each other than some type of physical labor done as a group. I should know, my father perfected this except he thought everyday was Sunday. I have noticed in my immediate family a phrase that has really permeated the daily existence. “Real quick”

Where and when did this phrase start and come into vogue? My kids and my wife are always going to do something “real quick”. My wife is always going to run into town “real quick”. The translation to that is a 20 minute drive to town, followed by 4 hours to buy some female hygiene products and a PayDay candy bar, followed by a 20 minute drive home. My daughters are always saying things like, “hold on Dad, I need to send this text real quick”. Which means, the text will be “real quick” but the post texting getting dressed in work clothes and actually walking out the door is closer to hours than minutes. First of all my wife and all my kids are female (I know I should not have to clarify that point as related to the wife but in today’s world……well ya know what I am saying…not that there’s anything wrong with …oh never mind.) The point is that females never do anything “real quick”. I am sure that they have plenty of rebuttals to men on this issue but they will just have to get their own damn blog.

The worst thing about the “real quick” craze is it has overwhelmed me and now I use it just like the finer gender. Today I was going to go check the special needs cows “real quick”. All the cows and their children were happy to be in the new corn stubble and range. Most were lying down chewing their cud and barely had time to acknowledge the annoying man in the pickup. I had chosen the “brown Ford” for this job because the “black Dodge” is the diesel and what hauls the hay and I did not want to give any false illusions of extra feed. Cattle people know what I am saying, anyway I took a leisurely stroll through the cows and decided since that went “real quick” I also had time to drive the fence. It only took about 25 minutes to bounce around and check the perimeter and I decided all was well and I would head home “real quick”.

I pulled out the gate, stopped to close it and noticed the radiator in the pickup was steaming just a bit. I pulled forward, closed the gate behind me and pretty much ignored the steam. As I drove a ways down the ditch road I noticed the steering seemed quite unresponsive, the temperature gauge was rising and the voltmeter was very low. Ha, I use unresponsive like I am comparing a Ferrari to a Maserati. I decided I better stop and take a look under the hood “real quick”. Under the hood there was a jumble of 32 tons of corn stalks (estimated) jammed into the front suspension and these corn stalks had caused the serpentine belt to leave its track. Well, (insert favorite string of swear words) I certainly could not make it home in this condition but maybe I can fix it “real quick”.

On modern vehicles there is usually one belt that runs every necessary component, alternator, power steering, water pump, and air conditioner called a Serpentine belt. Serpentine must be Latin for “I can do everything but I must have 7billion wild twists and turns to make it happen”. Luckily there was a handy little diagram sticker that was half visible under some oil, dirt and thistle seeds.

I made a “real quick” observation of the diagram and decided I needed to crawl under the pickup to snake the belt around the crankshaft pulley and fan. I made sure I was in a place where I would get the maximum number of goat heads aka puncture vine, Texas sandbur and tackweed when I laid down. After removing something like 30 (estimated) stickers from my ass and back I proceeded to put the belt in place. The underside of the pickup had the oddest smell and my mind immediately pictured a corn tortilla factory in a massive conflagration on a wet rainy day. I cleared the stalks ‘real quick” and got up to complete the job of putting the belt around the alternator and air conditioner pulley.

I have dealt with this situation before so I knew I would need a wrench or socket to take tension off the tensioner pulley. I was able to discern "real quick" that I needed a 5/8 inch wrench of some type. Now anyone who knows tools is aware that a 5/8 wrench is like the Ford Taurus of wrenches. They are quite numerous but you seldom need one. A quick perusal of my toolbox (see also whole pickup bed) showed me I was going to have to work “real quick” to find a suitable substitute for a 5/8 wrench. I must own 3,000 5/8 inch wrenches, sockets and the like but I ended up using a short Crescent wrench with a 1 3/8 inch end wrench with the box end over the handle of the Crescent wrench for leverage but I was able to get the belt back in place and headed home with all systems working properly.

I walked into the house and teased my family, saying “did you miss me?” They were enjoying their Sunday morning relaxing and talking all things female and Samantha (middle daughter) said, “that did not take long at all, if you will wait for me before you go to feed the yearlings I will go with you, I just need to take a shower “real quick”.

Today's real environmentalist species is the Northern pocket gopher aka Thomomys talpoides.