Silver Panacea
April 10, 2008 by Organic Mama
Yesterday morning began with my taking Bob’s Prius from my blink-and-you’ll -miss-it town 45 minutes away to the nearest biggish city to meet my old friend (it is the friendship that is old, not my friend) Naturedoc for lunch. We’ve known one another since we were undergrads at McGill University, 21 years ago (gah) and she’s been present at my most major adult events, including my wedding and the birth of my first daughter and although she lives a mere hour away, we see each other rarely; her practice schedule and my teaching etc have not lent themselves to regular girl friendly meetings, which we both regret. Life is too damn short not to spend quality time with good friends, so I have to figure out how to configure my life so that I CAN.
Anyway.
I left early for my lunch date because I was after a state inspection, and headed to Spiffy Lube where I assumed they provided these expensive annual stickers (they do in nearest town near me), but thought to call beforehand; when I received a negative I headed to a part of town where ALL of those kinds of service places are.
With about an hour or so to spare before lunch, I optimistically arrived at the first in a series of places proudly displaying STATE INSPECTION placards, however, despite encouraging drop ins, couldn’t help me. I was finally directed to Midas, down the road. Great!
After I pulled into the Midas parking lot, I rooted around in Bob’s glove compartment, grabbed the registration on the top of the pile and headed through the heavy glass door. Bill, the unshaven and haggard man behind the desk, surprised me by not growling (bad jumping to conclusions, Mama!) and instead smiled welcomingly at me. Then he looked down at my proffered registration.
“This is last year’s registration. Do you have the one that expires in 2009?”
“I THINK so…”
It was a no-go without the official paper: no, they couldn’t accept the say so of the town, no they couldn’t accept a faxed copy from the state office and no they didn’t have a fax machine. Text messages were also of the negatory.
Irritated and chagrined, off I went to find the new one but upon a careful dissection of the glove box, failed to find it. I called Bob, who claimed to know nothing of the vital paper’s whereabouts. Thinking dark thoughts, I continued my search, exploring the extent of my swearing vocabulary all the while. I reasoned and rationally, thought I , that since Bob had already placed the blue 2009 stickers on his car, and that the stickers had been stapled to the registration, it HAD to be somewhere.
Silly me. I should have looked through the incipient compost on the floor of his backseat FIRST!
So then I sat, awaiting the gold (”daughter Boo - “pearlized snot”)-colored car’s inpection. During my to-ing and fro-ing with the registration papers, an elderly man had watched me with amusement and greeted me as I sat down next to him.
I love talking to strangers. Well, I’ll amend that - I love talking to strangers under certain circumstances and my having absolutely nothing else to do than leaf through motor magazines and outdated issues of Home and Garden , I happily embarked into a conversation with this 80 year-old man. It was only a few words into the conversation when his accent betrayed his family’s origins: French Canada. I learned that although he had been born in the most northern part of these United States, his family had moved south from Quebec and when he entered school in way up Maine, he spoke not one word of English. He and his 11 brothers and sisters assimilated into American culture but never quite lost the accent of their parents. He has only one sister left now but tells his granddaughters stories of his younger life from the old photo albums he cherishes. My genealogist father would be proud of me: after Mr. Riviere shared this with me, I urged him to write down his story so later generations could know who were in those photos and where they were from, SOMETHING to bring old photos to life. He had never thought to do that and told me he thought his graddaughter would probably love to help him.
Then a mechanic came to tell me the bad news. I waved goodbye to my fellow waiting room vicitm and foled the oil-spattered mechanic. (Yes, a cliche, but well-earned, in this case).
“I’m sorry but I can’t pass this car. The rear bumper needs to be repaired and until that’s done, I can’t pass it.”
He had to be kidding.
He wasn’t kidding.
Looking at my face, he then said, “But if you duct tape the bumper up, I’ll pass it.”
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely. I know you don’t live around here, but if you get that taped up and come back, I’ll sign off on it.”
“Duct tape?” A beat. “Do you have any duct tape?”
“No, Ma’am, I’m sorry.”
Bob had slid on black ice into another car back in January, denting and dislodging the bumper, but I hadn’t thought it was nearly bad enough to warrant non passage. I had to leave - my date was waiting - so I left and was in the restaurant’s parking lot by 11:30.
We had a delightful lunch. Part of it was catching up on her perspective of the Bat Mitzvah, how old I must be to have a thirteen year-old (bite me), and her sharing assorted bits of gossip about people I used to know. The waitress kept coming by to replenish (lemon-free) water just as my friend was speaking of some of the very dire things that have happened, including miscarriages and terrible gasoline accidents, to old medical school friends of Bob’s. We moved onto happier topics, resolved to spend some time this summer together in her house in Ottawa and ate spit roasted chicken cooked in the restaurant’s wood-fired, 700 degree oven. Two hours evaporated and I found myself at a pharmacy (where else to get duct tape?) deliberating over various colors and densities of duct tape.
Should I go for red? Blue? I decided on classic silver and did, if I do say so myself, an exceptional job (my camera is being recalcitrant and is refusing to allow downloads, so please pretend you are now viewing a cunningly taped up Prius bumper) on the prescribed repair. Fortunately, the mechanic agreed, gave me full marks on my artistry, and I sped off home, still managing to get 46.3 miles per gallon on the 37 minute trip home.
Who knew duct tape, the silver panacea, was a would-be mechanic’s best pal? !
What have YOU used duct tape for?
Bookcovers. Taped over the brown paper bag. Silver and indestructible!
Also, it’s sort of holding the side mirror up on my car. But I don’t want to talk about it.
Over here we use gaff tape. It’s similar but usually used in theatrical and filmic venues. The regular kind is matte black, easier to tear off strips, easy on paint, sticks to anything until you don’t want it to. I’ve used it to repair clothing, to tape down electrical cords, to decorate costumes and everyday clothes, as a weapon (”Tape ball!”), to hold on makeshift bandages and a million other things. Doesn’t surprise me at ALL that it works on cars. Nice of the mechanic to tell you, too!
I do love duct tape and I’ve used it for innumerable things like making wallets, covering books and car repair!
How long has the mirror been encased in silver? I don’t think Bob and I have any immediate plans to get the bumper fixed…
Kizz - what’s gaff tape? “kay, looked it up - is it like thicker electrical tape? I like the color availability, and its versatility. Really - tape balls? Gotta try that.
It WAS nice of the mechanic to tell me and when he did we shared a laugh about how between duct tape (and gaffer’s tape) and wd40, all problems can be solved!
Does this qualify you as a McGyver?
I can commiserate with you about the logistcial hoops our delightful government requires us to jump through in order to drive a vehicle on our roads. I had to spend upwards of $600 last year to change a failed “check engine” sensor, repair a passenger door handle and replace my slightly cracked windshield ALL becuase our leadership in their infinite wisdom deemed my vehicle unsafe. Nevermind that I drove it safely in this condition for years before becoming a resident of our great state.
Damn them all and their conspiracy to screw the poor man!
Duct tape, one of my favorite tools.
Over the winter I used some to tape the sump pump hose onto 1″ x 6″ boards so the house wouldn’t melt its way into the snow and freeze up. Currently I’m using it to tape butterfly nets onto the vacuum end of the leaf blower/vac tool we are trying out at work. We’re looking for little tiny destructive weevils moving about on fine turf. We’re hoping that vacuuming them up is easier than crawling along on the ground looking for them.
My husband has a ‘69 Plymouth Roadrunner (not quite the eco friendly car your husband drives) that he has had for probably close to 30 years. Prior to us getting married, we had driven to a car show that was a good 2-1/2 hours away from where we lived.
After checking into the motel (o.k., I admit it, I lived in sin prior to getting married) we decided to go out cruising driving in the roadrunner. Unbeknownst to us, the city was doing major repair work on its roads and so in several places had huge metal plates covering up some of their repairs. These metal plates were somewhat raised up, which posed a problem for the roadrunner as it’s front end was somewhat lowered.
My soon-to-be-husband saw the metal plate and drove over it slowly. Unfortunately even though he was cautious, the metal plate managed to rip a hole in the oil pan. This caused oil to come pouring out.
As this was the only vehicle that we had driven up and neither one of us had AAA for towing coverage, we were up the proverbial creek. My husband to be called around the next morning to some of the local car part places to no avail.
That is when he decided to try duct tape. He bought a big roll of duct tape and covered the entirety of the oil pan with layer upon layer of duct tape. On the way home, we both kept a close eye on the oil gauge, but were able to make it home without any problems. He continued to drive with the oil pan duct tape diaper for a couple of weeks afterwards until he was able to get a new oil pan.
Nakey Girl: Y’know I felt ridiculous kneeling in the drugstore parking lot, but I guess I rigged up something sufficiently McGyvery to pass. Sorry to hear your state is way more anal than your last state - where do think the money goes? I’m guessing NOT to fix the flipping potholes.
Laurie, this stuff has infinite uses! Good luck catching the weevils…
Ms. Teacher: FIRST thing you’ve got to know is that “living in sin” is far up on my list of the BEST decisions I ever made, but I saw it as insurance and a learning curve. : ) You will find only hearty support for such wisdom - and yes, it will extend to my daughters - over here.
Way to go, on the second, for using the silver wondertape to temporarily correct your oil pan problem. I foresee, now that I have a new roll in MY car (I stole it), many uses for the stuff. Maybe annoying students?
It seems that annoying students are everywhere, eh? Although I have been blessed with an unusually good crop of kids this year, in the past I can think of a few students that I would have loved using duct tape on!