| BUYING A CAR CAN WIN VOTES
By Dave Barry
Since I'm running for president, I recently decided to stimulate the
economy by buying a new car. This is the big difference between me and, say,
Walter Mondale: when Walter talks about stimulating the economy, he's talking
about using your money, whereas I used my own. Of course now I don't have any
left, but when we finally have widespread properity I want you voters to
remember who primed the pump.
A secondary reason why I bought a new car is that my old one would no
longer go into first or third, which have always been tow of my favorite gears.
I tried everything to fix it. I tried force. I tried cursing. Nothing
worked.
I could have taken my car to my mechanic, Ed, but I didn't want to
depress him. Ed is very good at fixing cars, but he hates it because he
thinks the automobile manufacturers are engaged in a gigantic international
conspiracy to keep him from getting the right parts. Usually when I walk into
his garage he's stalking about, clutching some automotive object such as a
caliper, which looks fine to the layman but which does not measure up to Ed's
standards.
"Look at this!" he'll shout, thrusting the part in my face. "Just look
at it!" I'll look at it, the way a baby rabbit would look at the controls to
the space shuttle, and say "Huh!" and Ed will shake his head and say "Nobody
cares."
That's Ed's motto: "Nobody cares." His other motto is "WILL RETURN
SHORTLY," which is printed on a sign that he leaves on the door even when he's
there, to keep customers from bringing him cars that need to be fixed. You
think I'm exaggerating, but if anything I'm toning Ed down here.
Anyway, Ed has been unusually depressed lately, more depressed than
the time he threw the telephone through the clock, more depressed even than
the time he threw his little wheeled mechanic's stool through the sink. He's
depressed about a Volkswagen carburetor. He made a lot of phone calls
without getting any help, and finally, I am not making this up, he called the
German consulate in New York City, and even they let him down. "They said
they couldn't help me with a carburetor problem," reported Ed, shaking his
head. "Nobody cares."
So I just couldn't take my old car to Ed, because it happens to be
a Volkswagen, and Ed now suspects that the Germans are the kingpins of the
international parts conspiracy. If he had to fix my transmission, he's wind
up on the horn to the State Department, possibly jeopardizing the NATO
alliance. Also my old car was really worn out and had clots of French fries
and Slim Jim wrappers under the seats and various bodily problems from being
driven into the occasional inanimate object. So I decided to get a new car.
The problem is that I really hate to talk to salespeople. I'm sure that the
vast majority of them are kind and good and opposed to world hunger, but
they intimidate me greatly. My idea of the perfect sales transaction is
that I run into the store, hurl some money onto the floor, and while the
salespeople scrabble around for it I seize the object I want and flee.
So when I went to look at cars, I took my wife, who has no fear
whatsoever of salespeople. She'll walk right up to one and say, "Is this
the only kind of interior that comes with this car?" If I said something
like that, I'd be so embarrassed I'd feel obligated to but the car plus
give the salesperson a large tip. So my wife did all the talking. She'd
whap at my hands every time I tried to give the salesperson money.
We wound up with a fine car. Not only will it stimulate the
economy, but it's red, and the engine has two and half liters. I'm not
sure what that means, but the salesperson felt it was more than enough
liters for our needs, and he seemed very sincere. Who says nobody cares?
>>> This was reprinted without any permission from anybody <<<
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| CAR REPAIR
(from "The Taming of the Screw", ISBN 0-87857-484-0, by Dave Barry)
Most comon car problems are caused by pets (see chart). The best way to
aviod these problems is preventive maintenenance, by which I mean always
checking your car for pets before you start it. You should also change your
oil all the time. This is what your top race car drivers recommend. Of
course, your top race car driver also routinely drive into walls at speeds
upwards of 180 miles an hour, so I don't know that we should accept their
opinions as gospel.
Handy Troubleshooting Chart
Problem Cause Solution
Car emits foul odor Cat sleeping on
when engine is engine None
running
Car makes horrible Dog tied to rear Turm radio on
noise when moving bumper
Car will not start Something wrong Change oil
with car
Handy car maintenance checklist
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ENGINE
The engine is the large, filthy object under your hood, unless you live
in a really bad neighbourhood. To understand the importance of proper
maintenance, let's take a look at what goes on inside your engine when
you turn the ignition key. This will require you to cut open the engine
with a blowtorch, but I think you'll be glad you did.
When you turn the key, gasoline comes rushing out of the gas tank and
electricity comes rushing out of the battery, and they meet in the engine
where they explode with a force that could easily reduce the engine to
hunderds of pieces of red-hot shrapnel traveling at high speeds and
capable of destroying every living thing within 50 feet. But this will
probably not occur if every one of the 63,000 parts that make up the
engine is working perfectly, which is why you should maintain your
engine. Every six or seven thousand meters, open up the hood and inspect
the engine closely. It should have many random tubes and wires running
off toward other areas of the car. Newer engines should also have
oriental writing.
How to Change Your Oil
1. Start your car and allow it to warm up.
2. Lie on your back and inch along under the car until you locate a
little boltlike object that you cannot remove without a wrench, then inch
back out and locate a wrench.
3. Inch back under and rotate the boltlike object counterclock until oil
starts gushing out, just like in those old movies where John Wayne and
his side-kick discover oil and dance around, except whereas they are
dancing vertically in glee, you will be dancing horizontally in pain,
inasmuch as the oil has been heated to roughly 6,000 degrees by the
engine.
4. Speaking of the engine, I forgot to tell you to turn it off. That
should have been Step 2. I'll try to remember to correct that before this
article goes to the printer, so as to avoid a lot of unnecessary engine
damage and death.
5. Get some oil and pour it into an orifice in the engine until you see
little rivulets of oil running across the driveway because you forgot to
put the little bolt back into the engine, which I suppose I should have
told you to do back in Step 3, which will be Step 4 once I move the
current Step 4 to Step 2, where it belongs, but frankly, I'm tired of
having to think of every little detail for you.
TRANSMISSION.
The truth is, there is nothing you can do about your transmission. Nobody
knows how transmissions work, or even where they come from. They just
arrive at car factories in unmarked crates, and the workers put them into
the cars. Many people believe transmissions are created by beings from
other solar systems. There is evidence to support this theory, namely
transmission manuals, which contain bizarre diagrams and deranged alien
commands such as: "Using a 6.57 reduction-ended canister wrench, rotate
the debenture nut 6 degrees centigrade, taking care not to disenfranchise
the gesticulation valve."
So if something goes wrong with your transmission, your best bet is to
just give your car to the poor and claim a tax deduction.
TYRES
Tyres are extremely important, for without them the tyre industry, as we
now know it, would cease to exist. You should inspect your tyres
frequently for signs of tread and obscure little letters and numbers on
the sides, which represent significant events in the lives of the tyre
factory employees. For example, A78-13 means "All 78 of us tyre factory
employees went out and got really drunk last night, so maybe 13 of the
tyres we make today will be any good."
EXTERIOR
Your car's exterior takes a real beating especially during the summer.
Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, the sun beats down on
your car with harmful rays that can fade the paint and kill you if you
spend any time outside trying to do anything about it. So to hell with
the exterior.
EXHAUST SYSTEM
This is located under the car, smeared with road kills. From time to time
you should hose it down or drive briskly through a wading pool.
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ANGER ATTACKS by Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist
There is definitely too much anger in the world today. Pick up almost any
newspaper, and you'll see stories of anger raging out of control,
of people actually shooting each other over minor traffic disputes.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine feeling so much hostility that just because
you're in a traffic jam on a hot day, and you've been stuck for an hour waiting
in a long line of cars trying to exit from a busy highway, and along comes one
of those line-butting jerks, some guy who's talking on his cellular phone and
figures he's *too important* to be waiting in line with common restroom
bacteria like yourself, so he barges past the entire line and butts in *right
in front of you.* So you honk your horn, and he shows you his Mister Digit hand
puppet, so you haul out a pistol large enough for anti-aircraft purposes and -
*Let the scumball have it. Hahahahahahahaha. Wouldn't that be great??*
I mean terrible. "Wouldn't that be terrible," is what I mean. And this is why
it's so important that we learn to understand what anger is...
Let's take the case of the line-butting driver. The trick here is to put
things into perspective. Ask yourself: Does it really matter, long-term, if
this guy butts in front of you? Is it really more important than serious world
problems such as Ethiopia or the Greenhouse Effect?
Yes. No question. You don't even know where Ethiopia is. This is why
psychologists recommend, when you feel your anger getting out of control, that
you practice a simple yoga technique: Imagine that you're in a peaceful, quiet
setting such as a meadow, then take a deep breath, then exhale slowly, then
gently s-q-u-e-e-z-e that trigger. See how much better you feel? In Advanced
Yoga, we use grenades.
Ultimately, however, anger benefits nobody. If you keep it bottled up inside,
it eats away at you, until eventually you turn into a bitter, spiteful
hate-ridden person working in Customer Service. So take my advice: Lighten
up. Don't let your anger get the best of you. Don't lose your humanity, or
your sense of humor. Don't *ever* try to butt in front of me.
(Extracts from HYDRA::DAVE_BARRY #554)
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