To the irreconcilable dismay of Team Awesome, Mr. Bundy was not at school today (10/1). This meant that we wouldn't be able to hold our planned meeting to discuss the method with which we would circumnavigate the primer issue. Luckily, my infallible memory left nothing to be desired as I recited back the phone number of the paint shop we looked up yesterday (9/30). Jason provided me with the use of his phone, and I placed what would soon be one of the most glorious phone calls I have ever made.
I reached one of the employees and explained that I had a few questions. I informed them that we were planning on stripping an old Toyota Land Cruiser (roughly the size of a modern Tahoe) and that we were in need of a quality primer. I mentioned that we were probably looking for a high-mid range quality primer, and he had just the product in mind. KD2000 or something like that. He said they sold it by the gallon for just over a hundred dollars. This had me scared. We were spending about 5 dollars a can on the rattle can, this was going to cost a fortune, or so I thought. I asked him for a rough estimate of what it would cost us to coat the whole car in that primer. He asked me to hold on for a minute and I heard a lot of buttons being pushed. That got me scared. A minute or two later he came back on the phone and informed me that along with the quart of activator the primer required, we were looking at a total cost of around one hundred and thirty five dollars.
I was absolutely dumbfounded. I even checked to make sure that he was talking about painting the whole car, not just a door or two, and he sounded certain that it would do the job with primer to spare. When I told the rest of Team Awesome they were all as amazed as I was. It was really exciting news to hear that we were going to be able to paint it the way it should be done, and with the correct materials, for much less than we thought it would be. In the words of Michael Suskin, I think we all peed our pants a little. Full speed ahead!
