July 7th, 2017 - Have Parts, Will Travel - Road-trip to Red Deer to pick up Password:JDM Smoked Amber Corners for the EF8 CR-X SiR

July 7th, 2017 - Have Parts, Will Travel - Road-trip to Red Deer to pick up Password:JDM Smoked Amber Corners for the EF8 CR-X SiR


At my age, without children to cramp my style or steal my mojo, the weekend consists of mostly recovering from the 9-5 grind, errands with the wife; some shopping and maybe a date-night. If I'm lucky it also means occasionally working on the CR-X or taking her for a drive when the weather co-operates.

This particular Friday was the perfect storm so to speak. My wife was going out with her girlfriends directly after work. I had gotten off work an hour early, and was already home. I had plans for some take-out pizza and a quiet evening alone with the dogs, maybe watching a movie or futzing around in the garage. No CR-X driving due to a severe thunderstorm watch. As is my normal after-work routine, I was in my home-office on the computer checking the parts listings on sites like eBay, Yahoo Japan, etc when an ad on a Craigslist-type classified site called Kijiji caught my eye.

Password:JDM Smoked Amber Corner Markers

The seller had listed Password:JDM corner markers, basically new in the box, and was selling them for $50CAD. Pretty good deal, since I wanted to buy a pair this summer anyways and was looking at dropping about $110USD for them plus shipping to Canada. The only catch was the seller was in a small city called Red Deer, about an hour and a half north of Calgary where I live. I sent the seller a message to let him know I was interested and waited about half hour while I finished my searches before heading out to pick up my pizza and soda pop for the evenings frivolities and shenanigans as a free man.



While waiting for Coco Brooks to cook my pizza, I checked my phone and noticed the seller had replied. He still had the corner lights and was able to meet up tonight. Some astute readers of this blog will remember that this is not the first time I have gone to Red Deer for CR-X parts, so it's not outside the realm of possibility; a few years ago, I traveled to Red Deer and back on a Sunday evening for a genuine Mugen rear bumper.

I weighed my options.

In the PROS column was the fact I was already out of the house, the CR-V had a full tank of gas,  the seller was able to meet up tonight so no further back-and-forth messages were needed -- just an "I'm on my way" and we're good. I also had road-food being cooked at that very moment. Add to that the fact that pizza is a one-handed meal - meaning I could realistically (albeit somewhat illegally) eat it while on the highway, as opposed to something like a baked lasagna or steak sandwich which would require cutlery and more attention than safely operating a motor vehicle at highway speeds would allow.

All I had in the CONS column was: I could go home, eat my pizza and watch my movie, then have to explain to my wife why I had to take a road-trip to Red Deer the next day, or day after, taking away from "quality time together" and possibly have the seller sell them before I could get there. She would be understanding, as she she always is. But she knows that I know that she's being understanding and through absolutely no fault of her own, it makes me feel guilty that she's so understanding and I think she consciously or unconsciously uses that to manipulate me... mostly so she can buy more shoes, but that's a whole other post.

So I sent the wife a text saying: "Going to Red Deer for CRX parts. Won't be late." and sent a reply to the seller confirming a meet-up spot and telling him I'm on my way from Calgary and would be there at around 8:30pm.

And when my pie was ready, I grabbed my soda pop, and headed north.

I think I found those severe thunderstorms they warned us about

New Corner Markers installed.

Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.