The Day the Car Blew Up

"What's a temperature gauge look like?"

We all have strengths, and we all have weaknesses. When God formed the DNA on a person I’m well acquainted with, He must have smiled and said, “I’m going to give this one a large dose of creativity ̶ and only a pinch of mechanical aptitude.”

I have proven this theory many times. Changing a light bulb, for instance, comes easily.  But trying to follow basic written instructions for assembling a set of shelves? Not so much.

Along with the divergent scientific part of said person’s brain, comes the lack of skill in following GPS on a cellphone. To her credit, however, she did once notice a slight error when the lady giving directions told her to make a right turn into a cornfield.

So, you may understand how she could have allowed her husband’s Subaru to overheat and then blow the engine at a highway intersection.

It was autumn and a pleasant day for travel. This trip, however, was an excursion for duty. She was picking up her husband thirty-five minutes away, after his work shift ended that night.

The unusual part to this story is, the mechanically gifted husband of said mechanically challenged wife, did maintenance work on their own vehicles.  A few days before the incident, he noticed their little car was low on antifreeze. He intended to fill it back up but became busy and forgot to complete the task.  

He assumed his little wife would check the gauges. That’s a given for people with mechanical ability. They somehow assume the rest of the population knows these deep scientific truths.

Motoring through the first small town, the clueless wife stopped at a traffic light. The car stalled. That’s when she noticed the dashboard, and a little red needle pointing to “H.”

If I can just coax this thing along another ten miles, my husband will know what to do, she thought.

Bad choice.

As she stopped at another intersection down the road, she realized she was in the left lane and needed to be in the right lane. That’s when the dependable little car began to shake. White smoke billowed under the hood and escaped out the sides.

Sometimes, God sends angels to help the weak and the infirm. The mechanically challenged lady definitely qualified.

Quickly, a middle-aged couple jumped out of their car and asked if she needed help. With motorists swerving around them, the couple and a third “angel” pushed the car to a safe place across the right lane, and around the corner. One of them even gave directions to a AAA tow truck driver for the Subaru driver who was too rattled to remember her location.

 So, you see, all was well that ended well—optimistically speaking.

The polite tow truck driver did a great job delivering the defunct little car to its proper location. And the husband? Once he overcame shock and disbelief, he visualized dollar signs going up in smoke. When his blood pressure returned to normal, he was able to forgive the mechanically challenged wife.

He now hopes to find a vehicle that speaks instructions aloud for this mechanically challenged driver.

How about you? Any experiences with roadside mishaps? Tell us about them below.