A Honda Elite awhile back

I wrote this previously but it's about scooters so I'll leave it here. 

Here's the Elite polished up but still needing a seat. It was overheating so I spent the day disassembling it, draining all the fluids, refilling all the fluids, cleaning the thermosensor, blowing out the radiator with compressed air, checking the spark plug. At one point I adjusted a screw on the carburetor and then started the scooter to ride it around the block to warm it up.

I was almost to the end of the street going about 35 when there was a popping sound and the scooter began losing power. I turned it around and nursed it home. I went to readjust the screw and realized it had fallen out! Shit shit shit! The popping sound must have been the screw being blown out of the carburetor as I blew down the road. Also, now the scooter would not start up again.

A trip to the auto parts store and another to Home Depot resulted in the wrong sized screw and the right sized, but wrong shaped screw. The attempts to start the scooter with the wrong shaped screw resulted in draining the battery and liquid spilling from the bottom of the scooter. I apologize for the pun, but this one screw was screwing it all up. I had no idea what this specialized screw for a carburetor made in Japan in 1985 even looked like. I was screwed!

and then it started raining which is a blessing for Texas as we've had so little rain this year that we've begun catching on fire, but it was an immediate workstop as far as the scooter went. I went inside and had lunch and felt like a jerk for wishing the rain would stop. Which it did.

I stood there in the post rain steam wondering how I was going to fix this. I decided that I need to just go find that screw. I walked down the street slowly scanning my head back and forth. I probably looked drunk. The rain made the road dark and that made everything else stand out from it. I walked almost to the end of the road and right up to the screw like it was waiting for me. The little exchange I had with the screw went like this:

"That will teach you screw around with things you don't understand!"
"If we thought the sky was the limit, we would never have gone to the moon!"

I returned the specialized, 26 year old Japanese brass screw to its rightful place and the scooter fired right up. I rode it for about ten miles to see if it was still overheating, but it never broke a sweat. Austin was beautiful tonight. I stopped to watch lightning way off in the distance. It lit the sky up and the air felt electric. Now I HOPE it rains, we need it.