Al, we've just made our exit from Baltimore. With the Huppmobile making up lost time on the flats and averaging 25 mph, we'll be there in four to six hours. Did you bring your slicker, your driving cap, and your goggles? The Hupp has no heat so you might want to swipe a blanket. When I picked that Yoder guy up hoofing it in the drifts along I-68/70, he was wearing shorts and got the last spare blanket.
Poet, I once had a friend who sold knockoffs at flea markets on the weekends, and behind the counter at his store. He was always sporting his latest fake Rolex's at the store.
One night he had a hot date after work. His late 70's Toyota Corolla, or "Coroda", as everyone called the old rust bucket, wouldn't start. I lived within sight of place, he saw the lights on at my house and called me for a jump. I drove over, got the cables hooked up and it started in seconds. He decides it's not the battery and wants to do some quick poking around under the hood while I sit inside and try to get it to turn over while he's adjusting things. Within a few minutes he's got it figured out and has me start it again. I do and it's running like a charm.
I get out and notice a couple of things, one; the rod that holds up hood is missing and two; he's been doing this one-handed holding the the hood up while poking around with a screwdriver with the fake Rolex arm under the hood, metal attached to both arms. I notice the Rolex hand is getting really near the coil as he's coming out from under the hood, while he other hand is on the bare metal of the underside of the hood. I'm about to warn him, starting to utter the words "Uh, George..." to inform him that the fake Rolex's metal band is near the coil when he makes contact. His head and upper body shoot straight up into the hood, which, adding insult to injury, slams down on his head. I run to cut the engine and drag him out. He's grimy and suffering from the after effects of automobile induced electroshock therapy, confused as they get and not quite sure of where he was at, but not really worse for the wear.
He decided to skip the date and sleep on the cot in the back of the store, where his fresh off the plane nephew usually sacks out. About three hours later I get a call, it's the nephew wondering what happened to his uncle as he wasn't making a damned bit of sense, except that I had been there? I tell him the tale and he starts howling. In Lebanon, the nephew had been a local mechanic and knew all about the charge a coil could hold.
Poor old George has never lived down the "Night of The Living Coil". The man escaped a bloody civil war in his home country the late 70's only to be nearly done in by a rusty Toyota in the good ol' USA. If only he'd have clung to the Bondo sections of the hood, it would have never happened.
Topic: Al, do you neeed me to pick you up at the Philly airport... (Read 2182 times)
