Witz DOESN'T Pick: Car Trouble

I know that "Car Trouble" sounds like a movie starring Ice-Cube and Mr. Bean, but doesn't that only further my point?

My car is a disaster right now-- for starters, I haven't had it washed in probably eight months to a year, and parked it in a dusty lot for the last four months. This is an intentional move because I think it gives it that good, "don't steal me" look that I'm going for, and frankly, nobody ever differentiates by saying, "That guy drives a Station Wagon," and "That guys drives a dirty Station Wagon," (and if anything, "dirty station wagon" sounds cooler, like "Man, that guy drives really cool! PLUS, I'd be "ridin' dirty.") They just notice that I'm driving a soccer mom car-- end of story. So my car kinda looks like if Swamp Thing and Herbie made sweet sweet love and 9 months later (because in this scenario if a swamp creature and car mated, they'd follow the same birthing schedule as humans) my car-baby was born.

My windshield wipers don't remove water so much as paint impressionist art with dirt, and I'm never entirely sure that my car is going to stop when I brake (it's a little game I like to play called "Involuntary Manslaughter or Not!?")-- although I'm ALWAYS certain that they will squeel gleefully at my duress. My driver side rear tire loses air like it's selling it for crack, which makes it look like while my other three tires have been hitting the gym and staying in shape, this one's taken a month off to drink Budweiser and eat nothing but double whoppers with cheese while watching Law & Order marathons on TV (also, how awesome does that sound??). Oh, and you know those, "house noises" that you hear as houses shift and settle? Yeah, my clutch pedal has that. Maybe it's having an existentialist crisis, or maybe I'm one gear shift away from my doom-- TBD! To top it all off, one of my heat shield clamps is loose (again) and makes a high pitched metal clinking sound, so every time my car idles, children sit up in bed thinking that Santa's in the neighbordhood (yes, I realize this scenario assumes that children are constantly in bed-- but just go with it). I like to say to people who hear it, "Listen to her purr, huh?" and they like to say to me, "You cheap son of a bitch, take care of your goddamn car." I will, Dad, I will.

While I realize that my car sounds like one great big game of mouse trap at 70 mph, no one thing is enough to push me to spend the money to take it to the shop. These problems are all superficial and non-threatening. It's like when you're coughing, and sniffling, and your throat hurts, but you don't have a fever and aren't hallucinating that Tom Arnold is stealing your canned goods-- so you don't go to the doctor. Instead, you turn to self-diagnosis. Which really makes me wish I'd learned ANYTHING about cars growing up. My Dad explained to me a bunch of times how to change a tire, and in a pinch, I think I could use some context clues to make it happen, but when someone asks me, "How do you change a flat tire?" my answer is always going to be, "You call triple A." If someone asks, "Can you change your own oil?" I reply, "No, but I have $15 and they invented Jiffy Lube."

Unfortunately, when you're rollin' down a popular street with your car sounding like Marty McFly's DeLorean when it runs out of plutonium (p.s. 100% definite that neither Marty McFly nor Doc Brown had any functioning sperm left by Back to the Future III), you wish that you knew a thing or two about fixing your own car. I read a few websites and here's what the response was to the heat shield clamp. "It's a whole lot of noise, but not any type of problem. Just get in there with a soldering iron (soddering iron) and clamp it back down!" Uh-huh. I can barely operate a regular iron, nevermind a SOLDERING IRON! I primarily wear shirts based on what came out of the dryer least wrinkled and it's only under extreme circumstances that I bust out the iron and ironing board and have at it, and I'm still no good with the Bermuda Triangle part where the sleeves meet the torso (and it's time you admit that neither are you).

It makes me wonder what I did instead of learn how to do useful things like fix my car. "Can you check your own car's engine?" No, but I can tell you more than you care to hear about the show Freaks and Geeks..."Can you rotate your tires?" Nah, but I can play Say It Ain't So on Rock Band at 78% accuracy! "Can you replace your coolant?" I can drink abundantly if that's what you mean?

So until I have the money or until one more thing goes wrong that puts me into House MD territory (er-- House Associate-Degree-in-Mechanic-and-Repair-Technology), I'm gonna keep fightin the good fight, continue to raise my actuarial chances of death, and keep on giving children false Christmas hopes.

At Least One "Will Work For Food" Homeless Person HAD To Have Been A Mechanic Right? Like Even In the Army? I'd Even Take Him to Red Robin If He'd Solder My Heat Shield (...Hm, Easily the Most Homoerotic Metaphorical Non-Metaphor Witz Pickz Has Had Yet),
Witz

P.S. Yep, that was Red Robin reference was "sign-off post foreshadowing"