Herbie the Humbug

Herbie the Humbug -- or The Ghost of Cressida's Past???

If it's possible that cars (like the fictional Disney 'Love Bug' portrayed by a series of 60's Volkswagen Type Is) can have souls, I think my Cressida might be one of them...

[I know, I know, I keep going on about my non-Beetle beater, and you may wish I would write about something else, but if this blog is a sideways glance into my mind, that's what you'll see these days.]

Mysterious things keep happening with this car, as though it were not merely a collection of connected systems integrated for the purpose of transportation. It most certainly has character; Sometimes you would swear it has an attitude...

Without speculating too much about spirits and what they may or may not do, I'd say it's unlikely that a car would be 'born' with a soul -- that being the premise of the Herbie films. However, post-corporeal spirits have been known to do a number of very odd things, and if one were to decide to attach itself to a vehicle (or, alternatively, 'imprint' it), should we be surprised?

Now, before you start thinking this is some horror story like Stephen King's Christine, or an attempt at humour like the old television series My Mother the Car, stop. I am neither joking nor trying to spook anyone. Seriously, I suspect that my Toyota is more than the sum of its aging parts.

Today it started with only a few taps of the hammer (though the front passenger door, which gave me so much trouble yesterday, still refuses to open), then started normally (no hammer required) after a short trip to the grocery store. THEN, close enough to my favourite gas station to coast in, it quit. The fuel guage isn't working, so I figured we'd burned up a full tank already -- not so much from driving, but by leaving the engine running so many times in case getting it started again would prove to be troublesome.

SO. While I was pleased to find that the remote fuel door release still functions, after pumping in ten dollars' worth it was apparent that the tank had not, in fact, been emptied so quickly. Several successful tapping sessions allowed me to TRY to get the engine running again, but sorry, no fuel seems to be finding its way to the injectors.

Somewhere, it seems, the line is clogged. This is a risk you take when you rescue any gasoline-fired engine from years of being left stationary without fuel preservative. Yes, the lines and the tank were cleaned -- apparently, not well enough.

There was a space at the station for me to push it to, and that's where the Cressida sits, until I can walk back up there and disassemble certain bits -- after more study of the Haynes manual, of course. Oh yeah -- and I'll try spraying starter fluid into the intake, hoping the system will build up enough pressure to unclog the line. And -- first I'll try again normally, because you simply never know with this thing.

Humbug? Next on the agenda was yet more Xmas shopping -- I call it Xmas (sometimes FNXmas) because the holiday never seems to have anything to do with Christ... For that matter, it has little to do with Saint Nicholas -- but I digress. No, it's all about stress, stress, and more stress, which I have little of myself -- but I still suffer when those around me succomb to it.

Our kids already have much more than I ever had at their ages anyway, and there are plenty of presents under the tree. More and more, I resent this holiday for the mad consumerism the masses submit to, playing right into the hands of their capitalist overlords.

If my car IS haunted, perhaps that spirit shares my feelings (about more than this wretched holiday -- hint: front passenger door)...

Vroom vroom, beep beep. Happy New Year.