4408 Benchmark St.
Antioch, TN

Believe me, I’ve been looking for trucks. You can believe that. I tend to love fake Internet shopping for all things, especially on Craigslist. But I got to give it to my early-ass rising stepfather, he totally scooped me this morning on a 2001 Ford Ranger with brand new tires and brakes, an extended cab, and only 140k miles selling for $4,500. It’s not a firesale price but it deserves attention.

This one actually made the cut after a deeper morning’s research and prompted a drive to Nashville with my dearest mamma. I couldn’t understand a word the seller said on the phone but I love that the address was very close to benchmark 404, which is a badly formed nerd joke that I can’t be bothered to explain while typing laboriously on this iPad.

The guy had a southern accent but mixed in a very rare combo with the Indian accent of his birthplace. Skinny, smoked the whole time. Also very chill with my very winding test drive, which we did by ourselves. My mom fished a bunch of receipts out of the glove compartment. Turns out he dropped $5,500 on this truck only last September, and that was before the new brakes and tires. So I know he’s not going to be on the mood to haggle. And he couldn’t tell me anything about the timing belt. On these models the engines are “interrupting” and a thrown belt can damage a valve (and uh-huh, those are all words I learned to string together in that order less than 24 hours ago).

We rolled on to the next CL date. Who knows, maybe we’ll be back? The engine sounded good. I said I’d call him.