Automotives a foreign language?

Price is a sophomore broadcast journalism and rhetoric major and can be contacted at ryan.price@drake.edu

The idea of a world like that depicted in “The Matrix” seriously scares me. I never want a cord to be connected to my head to teach me whole subject matters, with one notable exception.

If I could connect a cord to the back of my head and download everything I need to know about my rusty 2001 Chevrolet Blazer, I would take the red pill in a heartbeat.

Seriously, I never feel as wholly incompetent as I do while working with my car.

When I go into a shop for an oil change, the etiquette is as foreign to me as getting a pedicure at a Parisian salon.

Do I pull my car up to the back and leave it there? Do I sit in the car? Do I lay on the horn? How many coffees can I have sitting in the waiting room? Do I wash in between my toes before the pedi?

And if I don’t even know how to park my car for an oil change, how am I supposed to know what the hell a carburetor is? If only I had the time and dedication to learn more.

When most of our parents went to school, there was a whole clique called the “gear heads” who worked with their cars all the time. My dad was a proud gear head, and I still have his shirt from his years working at an auto shop that says “Price” on it.

I want to know where these gear heads went. Maybe hipsters have replaced them, I don’t know. They’d be good friends to have, though.

That way, when I go to Drake Garage and they tell me I need to drop $200 of my scarce money on a “serpentine belt,” I can call my buddy up and ask why I need a boa constrictor under my hood.

When I go to Best Buy to fix/replace my television, I don’t need to leave with a microwave, coffee maker and Bluetooth headset.

But for some reason, when I go to the auto shop for a $30 oil change, I always leave calling my parents and telling them how much I love them while asking for a $1,200 wire transfer.

I’m either being scammed, or my Blazer is actually a decrepit antique. Probably both.

My sister owned a horse named Bailey for a while and she was an expensive, temperamental, moody steed.

Whenever she wanted to take a friend out trail riding in Minnesota, Bailey would never come to her beckoning.

She had to feed her several times a day and brush her. To merely store her oversized pony in a barn cost her thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, parking permits are hundreds of dollars for our cars, and if I want my car to work properly, it seems like I need to caress it gently and whisper sweet nothings into the muffler.

I guess some things don’t change.

Wagons broke down on the Oregon Trail, and my Blazer didn’t start last week when I had an important interview in 20 minutes.
Oh, and the worst part about knowing nothing about cars is the crap we unknowing men get because of it. Just because I can’t figure out what a spark plug is doesn’t mean my manhood is any smaller.

Real football players don’t need to know how to make and lace a football. Real chefs don’t need to know how to plant and harvest crops. Real drivers just need to know how to drive.

So, take solace my fellow auto-ignorant guys. Just because we don’t know the difference between a windshield wiper and a transmission doesn’t mean we’re any less man.

And until someone offers me the red pill, I’ll just thank the car gods for AAA.