Sunday, February 12, 2012

Standards

I drive a 17 year old two-door sporty coup.  Her name is Lola and she has seen better days.  I love her, though.  She once used to have a sparkling paint job, shiny rims, low profile tires, and a sweet little sound system.  She is a relic of my younger days.

One day while running errands with my brother, she decided not to start.  Mildly annoyed, I rolled her to a parking space and phoned my husband.  He and the boys drove over to where we sat stranded.  After fiddling with various parts of the engine, my husband asked me to start the car.

Nothing.

"Are you putting in the clutch?"  My husband asked with irritation in his voice.

"Yes."  This is not my first time driving a standard.

(Fiddle, fiddle, whispered curse word, fiddle.)  "Start it up."  My husband commanded.

Nothing but Ozzy on the radio.

"Let me try."  He scrunched himself into my seat, turned the key, and my car roared to life.  How did he do that?!  He's a wizard.

I asked my husband and the boys to follow me on my other errand just in case Lola decided to pull a bit of monkey business.  Son #1 jumped up and down with excitement while Son #2 played with his hanging duckie nonchalantly.  To a five year old, broken cars are very exciting.

After completing the second errand, monkey business ensued.

There we sat rehashing the same "Dance of the Angry Mechanic" that had been performed at the previous errand.  Suddenly, I remembered what we used to do with George, my dad's VW Bug, whenever it would not start.  I turned to my husband and said.  "Let's push-start it."


Fast forward to this scene: 
My husband has just pushed Lola up the incline of the parking lot and is completely out of breath.  I'm giving instructions to my young boys and my brother to stay in the other car with the doors locked.  I jump into my car and my husband summons the strength to push Lola down our improvised runway.  She begins to pick up speed and I pop the clutch.  Success! 

Now that my car is running, I climb into the other car with my two sons and my brother.  Son #1 is ecstatic!  "You guys did it!  That was cool!" 

Lesson of the Day:  Buy standards.  You can always push-start them when they don't want to turn on.

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