The "Lug-inatuh" : 03 02 2023

    We have more chances for big bucks today.  I found another TX Lotto scratch ticket with a Second Chance drawing for $100.  And..... if somebody was really really really really lucky, they might be the winner of a check for $10,000.  Who-wee!  I have to wonder though, has anyone heard of anybody winning a $10,000 2^nd chance prize?  Or even $100?  I know I haven’t.   Next, I’m pretty sure someone out there will have a check engine light coming on any time now because they forgot and left their gas cap on top of the car after filling up.  And of course I found it.  There must be 10 or 15 gas caps in the automotive section of The ‘Rundover’ Store by now, so if anybody needs one, just holler.  I found another lug-nut with lug attached and I remember reading a Ray Magliozzi article in the Sunday Star Telegram about that.  If you put the wheel nuts back on after changing a tire and you do your best ‘Lug-inatuh’ impression (said with an Austrian accent) and tighten the crap out of the lug-nuts, you could stretch the metal and torque the lug.  Meaning that the next pothole you hit will probably be enough additional stress to cause the lug with nut to shear off.  And then I’ll find it.  As for that bar with a hook, I knew I’d seen one before and after checking with ‘Da Googles’, it’s part of a tire changing kit. You put a set of extensions on the other side of the hook, and then the hook goes through a hole in the end of the jack, which when twisted, raises the vehicle.  So it would appear that somebody changed a tire and put the jack and almost everything back in the car.  Excepting the hook.  Too bad they won’t find out about it until the next flat tire.  Below the ‘Big Bucks’ Lotto ticket is a hitch pin and this one even has the R-Clip that goes with it.  Those clips don’t just pop off so I’m not sure how both ended up in the street.  At the bottom right is a fully mature Allen wrench, the first I’ve seen in quite a while.  There’s been a lot of little guys of late, and this is what they all aspire to when they grow up.  There was another Philips head drill driver-bit along the curb and it was one of those “what did I just see?” moments where I did a 180 and found it.  I found another mechanical pencil to go with all the Chase Bank pens I’ve found this week.  Lastly, I ‘hit for the cycle’ today! (penny,nickel,dime,quarter)  And looking at the coins, the phrase, “rode hard and put up wet” comes to mind.  Of the 2 quarters, 2 dimes, 2 nickels, and 5 pennies, just the shiny quarter looks decent and even it’s been gouged up on the other side.  But considering that they’re just little symbols of the Creator’s infinite abundance, big deal.  Bring on the dirty, beat up, ‘rundover’ paper money….I’m ready!