Everyone’s a mechanic when you’ve got your hood up. That’s the problem for me. I usually remain calm and know exactly what to do until someone says, “Pop the hood.” I search around for the right lever, and end up reclining my seat and opening the gas tank.
Once the hood is up, the person leans around and says, “What is your ammeter reading?”
“Uhh, not sure which one of us you’re calling an amateur, but I’m just reading this brochure I got at the last rest stop.”
I’m pretty much in trouble if something stops working on a vehicle I’m driving, or comes loose, or falls off. I’ve had all of that happen, and I’m pretty sure at the same time.
A few weeks ago, I came in from one trip and had to leave for the next one within 18 hours, so I said, “Let’s just go grab supper. I don’t think I have time to cook, and I’m not sure there’s enough in the pantry and freezer combined to even come up with an entree here, unless you want a cheese puff & mustard sandwich or a jello & canned pumpkin casserole.”
We hit the Culver’s with a fury, and I think the car got nervous on the way, and decided to take up smoking. We tried to calm her down, but when we opened her up, there was a distinct smell of an electric fire, exactly like the time the teddy bear got singed by Granny Mable’s wall heater. Which is hard to explain to the mechanic.
We ended up calling George to take us to the church lot to borrow a van to get home in, and also calling our very competent, but backroads car mechanic. He’s like a member of the family by now. You drive down a narrow road to get there, are greeted by a three-legged dog, and you can pick-up your car after hours and leave your check in the top drawer. Those are the best kind. Ask your deacon’s cousin; he may know one if he’s lived there long enough.
But now what would I take on my trip the next day? I opted for the 2003 Matrix in the driveway. It was my daughter’s back-up car, and usually reliable. Underline the word “usually.” The next morning at a Holiday Inn in the middle of nowhere – I still haven’t figured out what people are doing there – I ran out the door for my speaking engagement, dragging a roller bag behind me and balancing my Bible and customary three drinks.
I threw everything in the back (creating a vehicle back end almost as heavy as the human one) and then – This is one of those antique cars where you actually insert a key in a slot and have to manually turn it – I know, ridiculous. But when I did that, nothing happened.
Here I was in a car that wouldn’t start because the car I should have been in had a fried alternator, and also had my jumper cables. I ran in the restaurant, scanned the clientele, and chose a person who looked incredibly like Phil Roberson to ask about jumper cables. Win!
He got me out of there in time to make it to the ladies’ day that morning. It was way too reminiscent of the time my daughter called on a Saturday night and said, “My car broke down; can you come get me?” My husband had a sermon to prepare, and I had a Bible class lesson to pull together. He looked at me sitting in a mass of construction paper and macaroni, and said, “I’ll go; I think I’m more ready than you are.”
He was gone for about 45 minutes when the phone rang again, and he said, “My car broke down; can you come get me?”
“How many rounds of this are we going to play? Because I’m running out of time, and I’m about to run out of cars.” I think his sermon lasted thirteen minutes the next day. And I’m pretty sure the kids left my class with take-homes that belonged on the Island of Misfit Crafts.
It had happened before, and I’m sure it will happen again. I’ve learned a few tricks over the years that sometimes work, just because I’ve lived through it so many times. When the air conditioning would quit, my husband would whack underneath the glove compartment - I mean make-up, hair hickey-doodles, tylenol, lotion, pens that won’t write compartment - as hard as he could, and it would start blowing. I can coast down a hill in a stick shift, and let up on the clutch at just the right moment for the engine to start. And I can even adjust the volume on a radio that gets louder when you turn it down, and softer when you turn it up. I promise. Only me.
It sure beats beating on the battery terminals with a hairbrush until someone has compassion on you, which is what my sister and I used to try in our high school days. Even if the problem was in the exhaust system, a hairbrush to a battery terminal would get you help every time.
Of course I was on the church bus that broke down this Sunday on the way back from Transform Ladies Conference, also known as the World’s Largest Gathering of Women Spending and Eating Too Much.
I don’t know what’s wrong with the bus, but I foresee the deacon over transportation being met by a three-legged dog in the near future.
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