Yesterday I saw this on social media.
It reminded me . . . .
When I was about 19, I bought my first car. It was a 1978 Pinto, fire engine red. No A/C. No radio. Stick shift. A friend's husband "hot-wired" a radio in it. He didn't even put it in the dashboard; it was somehow wedged on the console between the dashboard and the stick shift, and if I slammed on my brakes, it would slide off the console and dangle by the wires. And it would continue to play after the key was turned off unless I switched it off manually, so I had to be careful not to leave the radio on when I wasn't driving the car, else it would drain my battery.
At the time, I worked as secretary to my brother, who had just opened up his law practice. His office was in a high-rise building downtown. There was a multi-level parking garage attached to the building. Every day, I would park in the same spot on the 5th floor of the garage.
One day, I got in the car to come home, and the battery was dead. I'd turned down the radio volume at a drive-thru window and had forgotten that it was on, and it had run my battery down. I went back to the office and asked my brother if he had any booster cables. He did not. But then he said, "It's a stick shift, isn't it? I'll come push you, and you can just pop the clutch."
I did not know such a thing was possible.
So we went back to the parking garage.
He got in front of the car pushed me out of my parking spot, and said, "Now, I'm going to push you from behind to get you rolling, and when you build up a little speed, pop the clutch." So we commenced the process. He got me rolling. I popped the clutch. The tires gave a little screech on the concrete pavement and came to a dead stop. The engine did not start. We tried again. And again.
He pushed me down ALL FIVE LEVELS of the parking garage. Push. Pop. SCREECH. Push. Pop. SCREECH. All the way to the garage entrance.
He was puzzled. Maybe we hadn't gotten up enough speed in the garage for the trick to work. "Let me go get my car," he said, "and I'll push you on the street fast enough to get it going." I waited at the entrance while he got his car.
Out on the street, it was push, pop, SCREECH. He pushed my car with his car for, like, TEN BLOCKS, red light to red light. Push, pop, SCREECH.
Finally, he got out of his car and walked up to my window. "I just don't understand this. Do you have the key turned on?"
"Oh."
I turned the key on.
He pushed me one more block. Push, pop, VROOM!
I waved and kept on driving. ;)
* * * * * * * *
I'll be painting wooden things again this weekend.
Yesterday, I went to a craft store and bought some supplies that Cousin Roger needed to finish the lanterns the flower store had ordered from us. I'd half-promised Roger that we'd go to the craft store together when I got home from work, but Roger had later told me that all of his girlfriend's co-workers had come down with covid, and since neither Roger nor his girlfriend have been vaccinated, I did not want to ride in the car with him an hour each way. I went straight to the craft store after work, and dropped off the supplies to him when I came home.
He said he had sold some of the things I'd painted last weekend. I said, "Cool! Let me know if you need me to paint anything else." He said he had two more big wooden circles (like those we used for the snowman/scarecrow yard signs) primed and ready to paint. I took them and said I might paint a Christmas ornament on one of them.
He said, "I kinda like that bag you gave me."
What?
This is the hard thing about trying to communicate with Roger. He'll start a sentence in the middle of a thought and expect you to know what he'd been thinking.
I said, "What bag?"
"The one you just gave me."
"Show me."
We went back in his workshop, and he pulled out the bag from the craft store. It had a very pretty wreath on the front. He said, "You can paint that, can't you?"
I said I probably could.
So I brought home the wooden circles and the craft store bag, and when there's enough daylight, I'll commence the masterpiece. ;)
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