"I never liked that truck," Hon said. "The steering is terrible."

"Think of it as an exercise program," I said.

"It’s all rusty," said the little miscreant, an eighth-grader, who is acutely aware of how things appear.

"A few little spots. That’s why they sell Bondo," I said.

"But the radio is broken, Dad," said little Buddy, our 5-year-old gadget master.

"We only use the truck to go to the lumber yard and the dump," I said. "Do we really need a radio?"

"Yes." He nodded emphatically.

"It does need tires," Hon said. "Those will never pass."

"I know where I can get some used tires."

"The horn doesn’t work, again," she noted.

"An easy fix; this time we’ll wire it straight to the battery," I said.

"And you said it had an engine noise," she added, correctly. There was a new noise coming from the old 2.3-liter engine, faint enough so I could tune it out, except at idle. It might be just the fan belt, or it might be much, much worse.

"We could try to get it through inspection," I suggested. "Keep looking for another truck, then we can sell that one as a winter rat."

No one liked the idea, but we pursued it anyway, bought more tires, installed a new horn, changed the fan belt and tensioner, and $400 later, the 1995 Ranger was street legal for another year. But Murphy’s Law was at work. Within days, the noise grew louder, then the front brakes seized. When I jacked up the front end to inspect the brake, something rusty slowly gave way and the left fender began to bulge.

I rattled the jack back down, defeated, parked the truck by the side of the barn and went into the house, to the computer.

"Did you fix the brakes?" Hon called from upstairs.

"No."

"Do you want to take it to the garage?"

"No," I muttered as I signed into eBay and searched the list of Ranger pickups. Buddy came, took his customary seat on my lap.

"Are we getting a new truck?" he asked.

"A new old truck," I eyed a 1994 Ranger in Danbury, Conn., with only 101,000 miles on it.

Hon came into the room and said, "I hate to say I told you so."

"Then don’t bother," I said.

"That one looks pretty nice," she said, leaning over our shoulders, "and it’s up in 11 minutes."

As I scrolled down the list of other items, I heard gravel crunching on the driveway, then a car door opening and closing. Uncle Chet knocked once, got no answer, came in anyway.

"They’re in the office, buying a truck," said the little miscreant, who was on the couch, reading a Nancy Drew mystery.

"Truck?" He waltzed in, where we three motorheads were hunched over the computer.

"Go back to that first truck; there’s not much time," Hon said.

"Go to the Huffington Post first and see how Bush is blowing the war on terror," Uncle Chet said.

"Not now," I said.

"He’s let al-Qaida off the hook by abandoning Afghanistan and Pakistan, wasting all our resources in Iraq," said Uncle Chet. "You know, those terrorists in Britain had links to Pakistan."

"It’s down to four minutes," Hon said.

"And Pakistan has the bomb; they gave it to North Korea and God knows who else," Uncle Chet said. "Right there, on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan; that’s where we ought to be, but instead we’re stuck in Baghdad."

No one responded, staring tensely at the screen until Hon said, "Two minutes! Are you going to bid?"

"He’s got 100 percent feedback," I noted.

"Buy it now." Buddy was squirming excitedly.

"But no, Bush had to make up reasons to attack Iraq, a country that had no connection to al-Qaida, that had no nuclear bombs, that’s been a bulwark against Iran," Uncle Chet said. "We’re being led by a fool."

"One minute, 11 seconds," Hon said.

"It’s at $1,625. How about $1,860?" I asked her.

"Go a little higher," she said. "Let’s get it."

"Forty-nine seconds!" she said as I typed in a bid and counted down aloud, "10, nine, eight, seven, six ..."

"Just like a launchpad," Uncle Chet said as I confirmed the bid.

The computer winked twice, digesting the numbers, and we held our breath until finally it told us.

"You won the item!"

Then we danced a jig around the desk.

———

Cooperstown News Bureau Reporter Tom Grace is traveling with his Uncle Chet, who he says is imaginary. Grace’s column appears twice monthly.