By: Matthew Lozynsky
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| Willie Baker looks under his wife's car prior to doing work on it. Willie tells me that due to a low income, he always works on cars from home. |
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| Willie begins to change the oil in his wife's car. "The drain plug is so [EXPLETIVE] hard to take off on this car." |
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| Willie curses as he struggles to remove the oil plug from his wife's car. He would get so frustrated with the plug that he decided to "change the oil another day." |
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| Willie grabs his lug wrench and prepares to remove the lug nuts on his wife's car. "This part really kills my forearms." |
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| Willie strains as he tries to remove the lug nuts from the wheel. "Getting an impact gun would have made this so much easier." |
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| Willie rolls the tire to the side as he removes all the lug nuts. He would tell me that the financial struggle that he and his family are currently in began around the time the COVID-19 pandemic started. |
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| Willie examines the bits needed to change his wife's brake pads. "Before the pandemic, I would have paid someone else to do this. I'm just trying to save money any way that I can." |
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| Willie looks at the break pads and rotor after removing the wheel. "Yeah, this pad right here is pretty rough." |
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| Willie fights as he tries to remove the old brake pad. "I used to do my daughter's car too, but her and her fiance are well enough off to go to the car shop for things like this." |
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| Willie bites his tongue as he continues to remove the brake pad. "I was getting paid really well before Covid, but I got laid off because I wasn't an essential worker." |
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| Willie continues to struggle as he tries to wiggle off the brake pad. "My new job is cool and all, but I'm making a lot less than I was before." |
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| Willie looks at the rotor as he prepares to install the new brake pads. "It's really hard to adapt in life when you're making considerably less than what you are used to." |
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| Willie closely examines the new brake pad. "I had some good jobs lined up, but my body is always hurting, so I didn't take them. It really sucks getting old." |
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| Willie smokes a cigarette as he looks in the new box of brake pads. "Smoking is another reason I've had all these financial problems recently. Costs a ton and I had to go to the doctor because of how tight my chest has been here recently." |
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| Willie looks in the box that holds the new brake pads. "Hopefully I won't have to do all this all over again any time soon." |
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| Willie walks around his wife's car to tend to another brake pad on the vehicle. "Hopefully it isn't about to start raining sideways." |
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| Willie adjusts his glasses as he looks at the old brake pads. "Yeah, I couldn't of waited much longer to change these." |
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| Willie unscrews the brake pads from the rotor. "Thankfully I'm pretty smart when it comes to cars, but as I've gotten older and weaker, it's hard to come out here and get a project done quickly." |
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| Willie uses a tool to remove another brake pad from the vehicle. "Hopefully my wife doesn't need to go anywhere today, because I'm about to call it a day." |
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| Willie looks at his bank account prior to working on his wife's vehicle. "By doing all this work from home, we'll be able to save around a hundred dollars that can go towards other stuff." |
