THE ANTHROPLOGY OF CARS part 6, II.

FRIDAY.
What really started this weekends suffocating focus on cars, was the hike we planned june 7th at 2000h with Andreas and Christine. The trip would have taken us to Pfeiffer National Park and some offroad driving, which made me think, now is the time to change the plugs, and get and oilchange on the Jeep, which I had neglected.
Friday I went to this weekends first stop at Kragen Autoparts, and bought 6 Bosch sparkplugs for the straight powerful V6 engine. Plugs that they sold me a dollar and nine cent a piece.
Back home, I let the engine cool off before changing the plugs, while calling up a mechanic to set up an appointment for the oilchange.

Plugs 1 – 4 went in smooth, at 5 I had to lift and turn some hoses and wirering, and as I pull the plug out from the socket, I notice that radiatorfluid is dripping from a hose leading to a gadget of the car. I curse, I spit! While spitting and cursing Andreas and Christine comes by our flat as agreed to run over the who-brings-what for the trip routine.
I quickly explain the problem with my car, guys under the hood, advices and great thought only lead to the conclusion that after trying to decide what the function of the hose and the gadget, I take a picture with a digicam of the part, dig out the manual. We then jump in Andreas car and race down to Kragen, my second visit that day, to get some help. We get there 5 minute before closing time, Friday. There is very help, no patience, conclusion: they don’t have the part. We walk away emptyhanded, me disappointed, Andreas a cool alpine breeze, being an Austrian. But we acknowledge the fact that we cant leave, there are no second cars to borrow and rent is not an option, som basicly its fucked: Andreas is fucked because he cant leave and I am just fucked because I hate car trouble, the trip I can be without at this point. A stop at Safeway where Andreas has some shopping to do, and while he is shopping I read the manual frantic, but under the sun I get frustrated, I cant concentrate, and cant find anything in the book that resembles the gadget.
Back home we agree to cancel the trip – in other words, we are letting the wifes know about it. I dismantle the part and decide to try to borrow a car for some hours Saturday to drive down to some junkyard near Moss Landing and find the gadget.

SATURDAY
our small residential community is buzzing with life. The second gathering of the masses, this Saturday being The Graduation Day. Campus as such crowded with parents in massive shining SUVs, topshit outfit, presents, enthusiasm, positivism, the future at hand, step up o ye faithful: picture perfect Saturday, and I am with them all the way, except for my car. Anyways: At 11AM, I succeded to talk my neighbour, geological graduate Andy, into letting me borrow his little Nissan. I borrow tools from Scott, get Julius to join me for the ride, the perspective of seeing tons of beat up cars fires him up, so off we go.
It’s a 30 minutes drive to Moss Landing. The Nissan operates with stick-shift, which makes me miss Denmark and thinking of my Volvo sitting in a garage, just waiting to be fixed up. But I forget about it again as we approach Moss Landing – a strange location. Dominated by the massive Pacific Gas and Electric Plant placed in a landacape which used to be a giant river-delta, now a flat salty marsh, a slough and not the least a strangely lively scenery during earthquakes, as the mud and soil in the marsk tend to “boil” during intense seismic activity.
The junkyards I heard of lies a good three miles inland. Four junkyards, surrounded by a huge and battered aluminum plate fence, looking like a fortress in a apocalyptic scenery.
Entering the first one I was told that you would have to be 16 to enter it, because they stack the cars in four and five layers, and entering as such was on your own risk. So I had to leave him behind in the car, and a intense 45 minute search on all four junkyards gave me no result. No thingie.
I would be basicly good and fucked by Monday if the car wasn’t running, so outside Watsonville we pull in at a gas station to refresh and think, when I see a sign for another junkyard. After downing a coffee, we race up there, and met by a very helpful guy who lets both me and Julius into the yard where Julius spots an old Cherokee, and in it: The Part, but broken! We walk back into the office, I show the same guy the part I pulled from our Jeep, we walk back to the yard, to dobbelcheck the position of the thing, and finally the guy can dfine it, he gives me a name of the part. The heat controller valve. And he not only gives me the name, he calls up to shops in Santa Cruz, to hear if they have it in stock, which they do. I shake his hand, thank him, and we race back to SC, just to find those two store closed. I spit, and I curse. A final desperate attempt, I drive by Kragens again. They are open: Now they have the fucking part, all they needed was patience and a name, I buy the f…… paying 29 dollars for that and three feet of 5/8 radiator hose.
Back home I wack it in, not without spitting and cursing, but it works, the car starts, it drives, I take her for a spin listening to Bob Hund, relieved, smoking, singing, and spitting.
SUNDAY: The phone wakes me up at 8.30. I just recently set our old Mazda up for sale which I should have done months ago, but I didn’t, and there you have it. It’s a buyer, she wants so see the car, she is bringing cash, she will take it of my hands if she likes what she sees. She will be here in an hour. I am too tired to stop her, as Saturday I ended at Andys graduation party and for once I drank. I hang up the phone, and it hits me: the car looks like shit, its needs a quick wash and a vacuum. I run out, still halferect with a bucket, our vacumcleaner, throws it it the Mazda to drive up to a spot in our small residential community where we can wash our mulitude of cars. The fucker doesn’t start. Not a click. Not a light in the dashboard. Nothing. Dead. I try to jumpstart it, nothing. At 9.15 the buyer calls me and says she will be coming an hour later. I say nothing. I call AAA at 9.18, and they say they will be here within ten minutes. I give the car a quick run over, it looks okay, but nothing…fancy. Put it up for sale for 1500 dollars. A “as seen” purchase. AAA doesn’t show up, but the buyer does. At 9.48. Half an hour early, me under the hood, I don’t see her come. I have never been that honest. She circles the var for ten minutes, and to my surpise she doesn’t run away screaming. But she leaves, leaving me her ceelphone number. AAA turns up at 1200, after I call them the third or forth time, but the cant start the car either. It seems to be an electrical fuckup and that’s where my talents stops. I call Iggy, he comes down, we fuck around for an hour. More guys come by, lean in under the hood like some secret meaning. Advices and anecdotes, but nothing solves the problem. Conclusion: the battery could be totally drained.

MONDAY
I take the Jeep down to the mechanic to get the oil changed and order a new battery for the Mazda. Walk the streets for an hour, and pick up the Jeep and the battery. The Jeep, she runs sweet. I drive home, change the battery on the Mazda. Nothing. Dead.
Tuesday I am calling AAA to get it towed to the mechanic. So it goes… And somewhere in this mess it struck me that I once had a dream concentrated around the problem that it was impossible for me to pronounce the word "mechanic"...

It also reminds me of a fishing trip I once went on...