I've related this story to a couple of you in person, but I've been
meaning to post it to the list as well.
As many of you know, our family car is a 1963 Volvo 122S, which is
almost a British car -- Lockheed hydraulics, SU carburettors, and a
little pushrod 1.8L four that sounds even more like a sewing machine
than my rusty MOWOG. Well, a week or so ago we had an experience
that proves that the little Amazon (which is what they call the 122S
in Britain) has found the right owners.
We were on the way home from a friend's house in Palo Alto, a quiet
neighborhood near Stanford University here in the Bay Area, not far
from where we bought the 122S. (In fact, I used to wonder whether
there was a zoning law requiring at least two old Volvos on every
residential block in Palo Alto, as they're pretty thick here, but
I think it's just the demographics.) About two blocks from the
freeway, with Kim driving, we saw the brights and blue lights of a
police car. "How fast could I have been going?" Kim asked. "And
where is my registration?" She started fumbling in the car, the
kids sitting in the back seat, as the officer walked up.
"I noticed your brake lights are out," he said.
"Oh my goodness!" we exclaimed, more or less in unison. "I know
there's a box of fuses in here somewhere..." And since Kim's car
makes my desk look like a Class 100,000 clean room, we began
a flurry of papers, squeaky kid toys (and yes, the ambiguity works
in both directions), bags from various burger vendors, sweaters,
papers, flyers, etc. He ended up holding the flashlight while we
verified that there was in fact a fuse blown on the four-fuse block
up by the master cylinders.
"Well, I'm not going to give you a ticket, because you seem to take
this so seriously, but why don't you try that gas station across the
street, maybe they have a fuse. And if that doesn't work, you can try
the chewing-gum wrapper approach."
I did, after thanking the officer profusely. We pulled into an all-
night Shell station where a slack-jawed youth behind the counter shook
his head dumbly when I held up the fuse.
"Then I'll take a pack of Juicy Fruit," I said; Torrey had recently
seen Juicy Fruit at the checkout line and asked about it. I'm not
a gum-chewer, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. I
paid for it, handed around sticks of gum to the family, and tore up
one of the foil-lined wrappers. I folded it into place around the
torn ends of the fuse (this being the variety with the fusible portion
exposed rather than enclosed in glass or plastic), gave it a few turns
to hold it in place, then closed it off with the paper on the outside
to act as a partial insulator.
"Start it up, Kim," I said from outside the car, "and we'll see if it
worked."
She turned the key, stepped on the brakes, and the lights on both sides
worked perfectly. I gave the double thumbs-up sign to the youth, whose
jaw was now slacker than it had previously been, and we motored safely
home, laughing all the way, brake lights twinkling merrily.
--Scott "Let's see you try THAT on your EEC-IV microprocessor" Fisher
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