At the Mechanic

We've had a long bout of Sam being sick again.  Nothing terrible, ear infections, the croup, and what is probably all related to the change in seasons and mild allergies.  After the second round of antibiotics and not eating for a good week, and being out of his routine, Sam's temperament and behavior was verging on terrible.  We finished up the antibiotics and he finally seemed to start to return to his old self.
Yesterday he was starting to return to the temper tantrums and endless tears and started to take inventory of, I swear, every misplaced toy he could think of.
"James??  Mama where James?  Sammy look for James?" with a note of desperation in his voice. After a quick search I located the missing train.
"Dump twuck?  Sammy no see dump twuck?  Is it?  Where?"  Now there were actual tears.  We found dump truck.


I was stumped when we got to Mater.  A little tow truck from the movie Cars, who is one of the uglier characters I have ever seen.  Sam hasn't seen the movie, but from the magical powers of Disney marketing, he knows who Mater is.
"Mater?  Where Mater?  Mama????" still in tears.  He wandered around the house calling for, "Mater..."  He returned to the living room and told me, very seriously, "maybe Mater mechanic."
I jumped on it.
"Yes, Mater is at the mechanic.  I forgot!  I'll call the mechanic now and check on him," figuring we could prolong this one until the truck turned up.
We "talked" to the mechanic, only to discover that Mater was still being worked on.

This morning I found Sam walking in circles on his toy phone.  "Yes, Mater?  Oh, no.  New tires Mater.  Yes."
He reported to me, "Mater not finished yet." Whew.

We were at a local farm today with friends and Sam fell asleep in the car coming home, and then was off his nap schedule.  Chris and I desperately needed him to take a nap to catch up with work we needed to do.  Chris somehow, in negotiating that Sam would at least lie down and rest, told him that if he rested, he would "go and pick Mater up at the mechanic."
This totally backfired as, first off, Sam never slept, only rested, and we spent the whole time he was "resting" turning the house upside down looking for the missing truck, and secondly, resulted in Chris running to Target to buy a replacement $2.99 Mater.

It seems that Mater got a paint job while he was at the mechanic.  This Mater has what looks like airbrushed paint on his sides.  Luckily Sam accepted the fact that Mater had a paint job.  He has also been inspecting the truck very closely.  "Oh, Mater new tires!"  "Mater yellow light?"  I'm waiting to see what happens when the old Mater turns up.