A while back, one of my hubcaps was suddenly missing. It had seemed loose on more than one occasion and apparently our "fixing" of it had ceased to work. (I've heard that Corolla hubcaps are basically the Lee Press-On Nails of the automotive world.)
Not thinking much of it, we went to the Toyota dealer to purchase a replacement. Imagine my shocked horror when Jeff emerged from the Parts Room with a flimsy plastic disk and handed me a receipt for $97.
What?
I tried not to grumble as he popped it into place. Oh, who am I kidding? I grumbled loudly and long-windedly.
The next week--and no, I do not exaggerate when I say that--I came out of the house to see that my car was missing a second hubcap.
Grrr...
This time I resolved to not fork over nearly one hundred dollars for a crummy product. However, that left my car looking neglected and lop-sided. On some days I felt glad that I wasn't allowing materialism and pride to dictate how I spent money. Other days I felt embarrassed at my lack of a basic automotive part, and just kind of lame in general.
Looking around, I saw that lots of cars similar to mine are lacking one or more caps. In fact, I began to wonder if someone who was missing a hubcap saw my full set and helped themselves to that second MIA one. Maybe lots of caps are in circulation around my city due to people trying to complete their own set--an underhanded game of "musical hubcaps".
I told Jeff that for Christmas I'd like him to go to a pick-a-part place and get me a cap, but only if it was significantly cheaper than the ones sold at the dealers. Surely something plucked from the carcass of a wrecked Corolla couldn't cost that much, right?
He informed me that that wasn't much of a Christmas gift.
"I'm going to be embarrassed if someone asks me what I gave you and I tell them a hubcap."
I assured him that he would actually be giving me much more than just a flimsy wheel cover. He'd be restoring my dignity--and at a fraction of the cost!
Valiantly, he went forth and attempted to complete the mission I requested of him...and came back empty handed. He did, however, learn about a website called (unsurprisingly) hubcaps.com that could hold the key to fulfilling my holiday wishes.
And did it ever! We got four caps from them for the price of one from Toyota. They aren't official Toyota caps, but they all match and fit my wheels, so what do I care?
So now I have a plan, but I don't know if I'll follow through with it or not. You see, as well as being a cheapskate, I'm also a bit of a discomposed chicken. I always have been. (When I was a kid, all of my attempts at prank phone calls ended poorly. I either panicked and hung up when my victim answered the phone or I giggled uncontrollably, rendering the prank unintelligible.)
So my plan is this: When, as I'm driving around town, I see that another Corolla-driver is missing a hubcap that matches my first set, I will pull one of my old ones out of my trunk (Jeff washed them for me and stored them there) and offer it to them for free. Until very recently that would have put a huge smile on my face, so why not do it for someone else?
However, countless things could go wrong: They might misunderstand and think that I'm offering stolen goods. Male recipients might think it's my desperate way of flirting with them. I might get some of those "You're weird so don't talk to me" looks that I got all the time back in school when I was just trying to be nice.
Maybe I'll go through with it.
Or perhaps the cheapo plastic disks will die in my trunk, cracking under the weight of poorly placed grocery bags. We'll see...
