As many of you know, I'm going to be a Baylor Line Camp Leader for the freshman class of 2017 for most of July, which I couldn't be happier about. However, since it takes up a large chunk of time in the middle of the summer and not at the beginning or the end, it made searching for a secondary summer job seem unreasonable. So, being the spontaneous, impulse buying, never-let-an-idea-die kind of guy I am, (remember the dia tanks? I drafted those in half an hour), I improvised.
One morning in the shower I had the idea that I could pressure wash driveways for some extra cash before I left for Waco. I didn't actually own a pressure washer, though, so logically I needed to acquire one. Immediately upon exiting the shower I put a towel on and found a guy selling one used for a decent price on Craigslist, out of Spring, TX. I texted the phone number saying I was interested, he said I could come check it out, I got dressed and left the house. Without telling anybody where I was going I withdrew the money I needed from the ATM and headed to Spring.
Spring is a lot farther away from Cypress than I thought it was. We have Spring-Cypress Road! Shouldn't that mean it doesn't take that long to get there? One of the lights was out at a really major intersection on Highway 6 and I was stuck in traffic, barely moving for almost half an hour. After about an hour and a half, I made it to my destination: An incredibly nice suburban home with a 3-car garage, two nice trucks, and multiple Polaris ATVs inside. If anything were to go wrong with the deal I at least knew that this guy wasn't going to kill me in broad daylight, and he didn't seem to be in a financial situation worthy of holding me up for less than $200.
He demonstrated the pressure washer for me and everything seemed to work just fine. It was a nice model, too, a 3000 psi Honda, one of the better ones on the market. It seemed like a really good deal...maybe even too good. I asked him why he was selling it and he said "It just started to run a little rough, and I'm not one for tinkerin'." I asked him how many times it had broken down and just stopped working, and he said that it had never completely quit on him, and I believed him. It made sense based on the contents of this man's state of the art garage- if something wasn't perfect, he probably just bought a new one. He helped me load it into my car, even throwing in a few bungee cords to help tie it down, and I was happily on my way. When I returned to my house and mom found out where I had been she freaked out, quoting times people had encountered bad situations on Craigslist and how I should be more careful, but I saw no flaw in my decision making process. I wanted something, I found a good one, I bought it, and now I was going to make money. Everything was fine. Was that naive? Probably. Should I have taken a little more time to do my research? Probably.
I chose to do my own driveway first, just to make sure that everything worked properly and to see how long it would take me to finish one so I could calculate a price accordingly. Calculating a price turned out to be the least of my worries, and being on my own property turned out to be incredibly lucky. I had been using the washer for about half an hour, experimenting with different heads, getting a grasp for what stroke patterns to use, and had completed about half of one of the tiles on my driveway when the machine sputtered out and came to a halt. I thought that maybe I was out of gas, but when I checked there was still a visible amount in the tank. Frustrated, I went inside and made a sandwich.
I came back outside after lunch, turned the water back on, and was pleased to find that the washer started right back up when I pulled the cord. Being the incredibly bright, full of common sense, Dean's List college student that I am, I started working on the tile directly below the one that was half finished, and finish half of it also, in ten minutes this time! Then the washer died for good. I ended up having to take it to a lawn mower repair shop, where they took over a week to fix the carburetor and give it a tune up...for another $90. Not only was this a week that I couldn't use it to make any money, it also cost me...and my driveway looked utterly ridiculous the entire time.
After I finally got my baby back, and she purred like a kitten, (for the price of a brand new purring kitten, might I add), I started back on my driveway. And the moment that I finished it, I was staring at Ol' Faithful herself. The hose from the engine to my spray wand had a pinprick hole in it, and when water ran through the machine it sprayed a mist 15 feet into the air. I tried to cover it with a rubber casing that was on the hose, but as soon as I turned the water on it broke through that and sprayed even higher. The hose was done for.
Not to worry, right? That has to be the least expensive part of this whole set up, how much could it cost to replace? Let's try another $60. I found one at Home Depot that was the same brand as the spray wand, (which the previous owner had recently replaced), and that was suited for up to 3600 psi, more than ample for what I needed.
I felt like I was finally ready to go, so I drafted up some beautiful, humorous, and altogether enticing flyers and passed them out up and down my street, left a few at my dad's old office, and sent out a few emails. Today, I had my first job.
Let's talk about this morning. The job was 15 minutes away, and I needed to be there by 9 o'clock. I planned to leave at 8:30 just in case, and because it never hurts to be early. I set my alarm for 7:30, thinking that would be plenty of time to do everything I needed to do, mainly: eat breakfast, make a lunch, mix my chemicals, grab some tools, put the new hose on the washer, and load the car. I woke up in a frantic delusion at 7:00 anyway, because my body was just so excited, and luckily I decided to leave bed then.
After a short breakfast, I made the discovery that the brand new hose I had purchased did not in fact, "fit all pressure washers", as advertised. In a situation where one size fit most, I was the minority. So, in a rush to get to the hardware store and buy a new hose that actually served a purpose, I loaded the washer and my gas can into the car and left the house. Let's count the things I forgot: lunch, chemicals, tools, dignity. Right.
After floundering around Lowe's at 8 in the morning, where no employee wants to help you because it's seriously too early to have such a serious concern, I found what I needed, shelled out another $60, and was able to make it to the house a few minutes early.
I don't usually sweat much, but standing outside today, monotonously stroking back and forth with the wand in the sweltering Houston heat, I couldn't have been more grateful for the sweat dripping down my body. The rest of the day went without a hitch, and it felt so fantastic to actually be doing something productive with my time. After putting so much time, money, and effort into this project, I had finally yielded a result, and it was amazing. I worked really hard, and made sure to do a job I'd be proud of. I even got the go ahead to do the house across the street tomorrow. I made it out of the valley and now I'm finally going places. After overcoming all of that today, I think it goes to show that everything temporary is tolerable, and almost everything in life is temporary. Don't give up on your goals, learn from your mistakes, make spontaneous decisions, and always follow through.
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