Shouldn't Gas and Oil be Best Friends by Now?

The angriest Total Stranger I've ever met was a mechanic who fixed my car when I was sixteen.  It was amazing - the way his neck veins bulged and spittle flew everywhere as he threatened to call my father about the egregious wrong he'd uncovered.

The Total Stranger knew my father.  Everybody knew my father - but instead of being worried, I begged him to call.  I needed a translator to understand the crime I'd committed against my car's engine, but I also sensed I'd need bodyguard backup while retrieving my keys from Shaking Guy's fist.

I drove a ten-year-old 1964 Ford Four-Door.  'Four' and 'Door' are capitalized because Ford had neglected to bestow a given name on this model, so I made one up.  ("LTD" was already taken.)

During most of high school, I worked evenings at Bishop Randall Hospital - which meant I could no longer ride the school bus into town.  Dad cried every time one of his vehicles left for the demolition derby that broke out twice a day in the high school parking lot, so he decided he'd find a DEPENDABLE car for me.

DEPENDABLE (in my mind) = Soft-Top Convertible, Any Bright Color

DEPENDABLE (in Dad's mind) = Steel-Reinforced Sedan, Army Jeep Green

I nicknamed her 'Greep.'  Her front seat held eight friends comfortably with room for a cooler, but her most desirable feature was a $25 monthly loan payment to the First National Bank.

I tried explaining to the shaking, spitting, eyes-popped-out mechanic that I was forced to put that masking tape over the 'Check Engine Oil' indicator.  My work shift ended at 11:00 p.m. and driving home with that blinding red light could have caused a serious accident.  I just forgot the tape was on there for a couple of weeks.  Maybe more than that.  I, um, think we had midterms or something.

He did not understand my story at all.  He just kept spitting - and screaming, "There is gas in the oil!  There is GAS in the oil!  There is gas in the OIL!"... until his voice became a series of barely audible squawks and I could finally hear myself think.

Well.  You can imagine how red my face was in today's Car Smarts class when I figured out - after 40 years - why that mechanic went all Crazy Guy on me.  Totally my fault, so I really should go back to Wyoming and offer a fitting apology.  Perhaps I'll pay his entire nursing home bill if that pesky blood pressure problem hasn't already done him in.

Today's instructor spent four hours explaining routine car maintenance and told us what to look for when choosing a mechanic.  He didn't mention spitting, or other barriers to effective communication, but he explained camshafts and intake valves and compression ratios.  He explained the difference between 'burning oil' and 'leaking oil' - it was mesmerizing.

I'll probably dream about worn piston rings and valve stem seals.

But I'm not sure I could work this into a post-retirement hobby unless I only solve problems that I personally had with cars the 1970s.

Does anybody remember flat tires?

I had a VW that must have seen some axle-bending action before I met her, because one of her rear tires exploded about every six months.  Always at highway speeds and many miles from anywhere, but she was so light my friends just held up one corner while I changed the tire.  I'm not sure I even owned a jack for that car.

Once I was returning home from Casper with two friends when a tire blew.  We all knew the drill.  I eased onto the shoulder, rolled to a stop, and pulled the lever to open the front trunk for the spare.  Debbie and Nona hopped out, but this particular time our routine screeched to a halt:  we'd stopped next to a sleeping rattlesnake.

The snake was coiled up, perfectly still.  Nona froze.  Debbie thought the snake didn't look real, so she threw a handful of rocks on it.

It was real.

They screamed and bolted in opposite directions, while I inadvertently serpentined the car down the road - unable to see past the open hood. 

We lived to drive - and to make other stupid mistakes - another day.

Once on a deserted highway in Arizona, I flipped on the blinker and started to pass a gigantic tumbleweed that was rolling way under the speed limit.  The man in the passenger seat marveled loudly at my stupidity, which should have been my clue to end that relationship pronto.  Was I supposed to follow the five-foot weed all the way to Phoenix?  Should I have honked?  Luckily, a tire blew and changed the subject for us.

I met the second-angriest Total Stranger in my twenties.  A highway patrolman stopped me on a stretch of I-80 between Elk Mountain and Laramie, and when I saw the shakiness, the neck veins, the spit - I figured it was something I had done.  I glanced at the dashboard - no bright red lights.

I hoped he wasn't having a stroke because I'd just started nursing school and at that point was only able to feed him Jell-o and offer an 8:00 pm backrub, were he ever hospitalized.

Apparently, I was going 103 miles an hour.  At midnight.  In the winter.

Whoosh!  What a relief!  I could explain!

You see, Officer, my Scirocco's speedometer only goes to 85.  After that I have to watch the tachometer - so I honestly couldn't possibly have known my speed!

I handed over my law-abiding-person license, but that just made him angrier.  When he could speak, I learned he had a daughter my age.  It seemed irrelevant at the time - but eventually I had my own daughter, and I can simulate stroke symptoms pretty quickly when I insert her into that same situation in my mind.

I believe I've earned that soft-top convertible.  I'll drive it at acceptable speeds, both hands on the wheel, and keep a lookout for rattlesnakes - all the way to a dealership where I'll trade it for something super safe.

The salesman's smile will sum it all up:  "Yep," he'll tell himself, "I have a mother your age."

(Two, four, six, eight - how can we procrastinate?  Yay, Sponge Brain!  Yay, Stretch Pants!  Yay, YAY, NUMEROLOGY!  Right here.  Next week.)