I was doing an alignment on a Ford Excursion the other day and had decades of laughs dumped freely in my lap, so why not share?
Now I know what you're thinking. What could possibly be even remotely funny about doing an alignment on a Ford Excursion? And you're right. It's a real stretch. If you're not a tech struggling with the wheels and tie rods of this behemoth, chances are you'll find something else to laugh about and I don't blame you.
I hate Excursions. I hate the people who drive them. If the owner is a man, I call it overcompensation. If the owner is a woman, I call her a [nasty name]. Either way, I called it pretty damn close to home. They can't [freakin'] drive. They either tailgate or go too slow in the fast lane. Or worse, they alternate between the two and really piss everyone else off. A cell phone is required equipment for any of those annoying driving habits, but that's obvious so I won't dwell on it.
(however if you happen to be a member of the board and you're reading this, don't take it personally. I hate everybody equally)
Anyways...
I've got this Excursion on the alignment rack. After waiting for my tired old Hunter lift to overcome its own weight and then weakly raise Ford's pointless pipeline of dollars to Saudi Arabia, I finally got the wheels raised and started comping the heads.
(that means I mounted sensors on the wheels and spun each around to get the alignment measurements....aw hell, why do I bother?!)
At this point, my manager came over to look at the screen and found a sea of green. Green is good if you're a customer; red means "out of specifications", green means "in specs". Red means money for us, so he said "I can't believe it's sitting at that toe, it's been two years since we aligned it!"
Well, I can believe it with a Ford Excursion, even with some dumbass soccer mom at the wheel. That's what they built the damn things for! So I play along with what I know will come next. (Joel: "make it look like it's out" Me: "ok Joel, bump the wheel a little"....that's my Nuremburg defense)
I say "Joel, it's a bulletproof suspension. It's what they use on the Space Shuttle!"
Bump the wheels out of specs a little and look the other way.
A few seconds later, Joel says, and I quote verbatim:
"Do they really use this on the space shuttle?"
Let me repeat that:
"DO THEY REALLY USE THIS ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE?"
It was all I could do to keep from smacking him upside the head.
No you f--king idiot! They don't use Ford Excursion front-ends on the f--king space shuttle! It's big, but it ain't that big!
Yes friends, he asked that question in absolute seriousness.
Needless to say, those words haunt him for years to come. Yer old buddy Bendrr just can't let something like that slide.
"Space Shuttle......"
I don't know what else to say. I was almost at a loss for words.
"Ford Excursion"
"Space Shuttle"
Yep, somebody's life is gonna be hell over that innocent question!
Mike.
p.s. "space shuttle"