I wanted a pickup, just a compact little pickup that I could drive to work, use for hauling stuff to the dump and for other little jobs on our acreage.

An ad appeared in the local weekly paper for a refurbished pickup that was in my price range (cheap). I called about it, my wife and I drove over to have a look. It had been freshly painted and the seller claimed he had tuned up the motor. He had a little trouble starting it, but then it ran fine. I paid the money and drove it home.

It didn’t run fine for long. It sputtered and backfired, I tinkered with it until it would run fairly smoothly again, and pretty soon it was sputtering and backfiring again.

I finally got tired of tinkering with it and parked it. After it had sat about a year, I made one last try to get it running. It wouldn’t even start. I called the auto wrecker to come and haul it away.

I should have caught on as soon as I saw it. The guy had painted it a nice bright lemon yellow.

[This is a different pickup, but the same colour]