It is a time of peace, quiet, and a little magic as the sun comes up and graces the landscape with it golden rays, a precursor to the heat it will blast out in just a short while. Birds sing gently in the soft, warm air, the Palo Verde trees seem greener than usual, little lizards bask in the sun atop flat rocks everywhere. In short, a desert morning is soul-soothing experience. And this morning was no exception. Except the normal subdued hum of the desert waking up was interrupted by the intrusive sound of oil dripping off of my Baja Bug. And I did not notice the beauty of the surrounding environment, nor did I appreciate the soft call of the mourning dove. No, this desert morning’s beauty, peace and tranquility were totally lost on me.
As I stood there next to my broken car, it came to me that I now had some real problems. First, there was no doubt that I was going to be epically late to work this morning. Second, I had to figure out some way to get the friggin’ Baja Bug back up the street to my house. Third, I didn’t have the money to replace the oil in the car so soon. Fourth, I needed to figure out a way to let my work know that I was running late (Not a lot of us had cell phones way back in the mid-90’s!).
Little did I know that I had more to worry about than I figured on. Much more. Before the morning had passed, I would face many more challenges, including being run over, angry neighbors, and, believe it or not, rape.
But all I knew at the time was that I needed to start working on my problem of getting the oil-deficient car up the street to my house. Having nobody to call on for help meant it was up to me to somehow get the thing safely back to it’s garage. Seeing no other option, I decided to push it home. After all, I was really only two or three hundred yards down from my house, and the street wasn’t too steep.
These would prove to be long yards, indeed.
So, with no better plan in mind, I popped the car out of gear and ran around to the front bumper to start pushing. This is where things started to get worse. First of all, that not too steep street was still enough to start my car downhill-bound as soon as I popped it out of gear. So right off the bat I almost got run over by my own car. However, I deftly avoided that disaster and got the car stopped by pushing mightily on the front bumper. Which was great, except gravity and myself were now at a stalemate and the car was making no progress back towards its home.
Suddenly, my house looked very far away, after all. However, not one to give up, I decided to push ahead as best as I could. I soon discovered that by shifting my body somewhat, I could hold the car in place with not too much effort. Then, with a little more shift, and a LOT of effort, I could push the car up the hill. After a lot of struggle, I had gotten the car about 15 feet and was getting quite tired, so I had to stop to rest, leaning on the front bumper just in just the right way to keep me from getting run over. Panting, I peered over the hood and through the windows to check my progress. Home might as well have been in another zip-code. Oh well. I figured at this pace, I could probably have the car home in about an hour. Whatever, right?
Wrong again.
After my brief rest, I started shoving the wounded car up the street again. You never realize how steep a street is, or how heavy a car is until you have to push it up said street. Distance takes on a whole new meaning as well. Every single inch of progress is a victory. Still, I forged on, making fair progress with my burden. Then, suddenly I slipped, almost fell, caught myself, almost fell again, finally got my footing, slipped some more, slid backwards with the car, almost got ran over again and finally managed to get this whole silly parade stopped. What. The. Hell. Why could I suddenly not keep my footing?
Do you have any idea just how slippery shiny new Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil is when applied in large amounts is on a paved street?
I do.