The request was simple enough: I needed a distributor ignition pickup for a small-block, Duraspark-era Ford. For you counter folks, that would be a Dorman F107. Should be a non-event: just go to the store, either buy the part or place the order and buy the part when it shows up. It shouldn’t warrant writing a story about at all, right?

You must be new here. Welcome. Enjoy your stay and be sure to look around a bit.

After working with the green-and-white guys and getting nowhere fast, I placed an order with my local black-and-orange types. F107, due up from a hub about an hour away, ready for pickup first thing in the morning. I elected to pay upon receipt, thanked them, hung up the phone, closed up the car and called it a day. I’m patient enough to wait until the next morning.

Sure enough, at 10:00 a.m., I got a text telling me that my part had arrived and it was ready to come home with me. I hopped into the daily, made the 20-mile drive into town, and walked up to the counter clerk, eager to get the one item I was sure was keeping a happy little 302 from starting.

The clerk, who looked like he was fresh from an elective surgery and hadn’t completely come out of the anesthesia yet, got the box and handed it to me. And this is where the process completely goes off the rails.

The box is the right size.

The box has the correct part number (F107) on it.

The box is held shut with Scotch tape. (Oh, no…)

The box weighs in at about eight or nine pounds.

I cut the Scotch tape with one of the sharper keys on my ring and lo and behold, what was in the box wasn’t my Ford ignition pickup, but what looked like a fuel pump for a marine application, complete with lug terminals and …what the hell, is that algae?!

Yeah… that ain’t right.

After a few minutes of watching the loopy clerk try to figure out where the correct part was in his store (surprise, it was the box he had just handed me), I took control. I had to make a trip north that morning to a city just outside of my normal area and I wondered if one of those stores might have what I really needed. Five minutes of Google-Fu answered my question: A five-minute deviation from my travel plans would put the part in my hand. I called that store, reserved a real F107 pickup module, and left.

But wait…there’s more!

That afternoon, after taking in a two-hour drive through the countryside, the wife and I exited the mess that is currently the interstate system in Louisville, Kentucky. For those who don’t know, Interstate 65 is shut down from the southern city limits to the border with Indiana while they completely replace the bridges in the area. Just a fun fact…

We exited into a pleasant area of town that had a graded road bed. You know, just before the city puts down that fresh blacktop that is oh-so-nice to drive on. She was rattled awake from the roughness of the road and wanted nothing more than to hurry this errand up so we could meet with a co-worker of hers for some dinner.

I walked into the hub store expecting it to be a shining example of what any auto parts store should be: clean, stocked, and filled with just about anything need for a 1955-or-newer vehicle at the ready. What I wasn’t expecting was the conversations I heard as I walked in:

“Teddy bear-looking young male worker”: “Dude, what’s up with you?

“Tattooed young male worker”: “What? I’m having a good day!”

Teddy Bear: “Naw, you look like you’re tweaking.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m pretty sure I had this same conversation twelve years ago when I was behind the counter.

Angry customer: “Hey! Quit jackin’ off back there and find my fkn’ part already!

Ahh, home. Like I never left.

This is the correct part. See the difference? Apparently one parts store hub couldn’t.

Teddy Bear proceeded to help me out. We joked about the angry customer, I told him that I had a few months behind the counter myself, and while he was tracking down my prize said something that just about made me snort: “Man, I’ve only been working here six months and I could write a book about the shit that goes on here.”

I worked at the store six months. I wrote a few things. Look where I got…

Epilogue

Two days later, I’m back at home. I have the elusive F107 item, I have the distributor out of the engine and on my stand, ready to get to work.

I cracked the main housing as soon as I started. I had placed the housing in a vice with soft jaws to start prying off the reluctor wheel.

All for nothing.