Spark an interest

I figure it is just a matter of time until I am called to head up a pit crew for a NASCAR team.
The reason for this, of course, is that my legendary mechanic skills have probably already reached the highest levels of auto repair, after my heroic triumph as a mechanic.
Granted, some of the naysayers out there say what I did was not car repair, but rather maintenance. To which I say: Pshaw. I changed out three – THREE – of my car’s spark plugs. That, my friend, is as complicated as it gets.
OK, it’s as complicated as I get. I don’t do car repairs. I have the folks at the auto store change out my wiper blades. I have no idea how oil gets changed. I am not even sure if I have a tire gauge.
Recently, my neighbor said that my car needed new spark plugs. I, of course, assumed this was a joke. I laughed, slapped him on the back and said, “Spark plugs. Good one.”
Apparently, spark plugs are in fact part of a car, and apparently a critical part. He said that changing spark plugs was easy, and that if I picked up four at the store, we could do it in no time.
I am not sure why, but I decided to comply. I went the auto parts store, and recalled the numerous times I have sounded like a complete moron asking for something. So I decided to lay it all out for the guy behind the counter. “Hi, I know nothing about cars, but my neighbor said I need four spark plugs.” The guy stared at me with a rather sad look. I think he felt sorry for me, and certainly for my children.
When I got back to the house, my neighbor was ready to tackle the problem. He brought over a tool chest that weighed slightly less than Buick. And in the chest were about 400,000 socket attachments. He fiddled with piece after piece until he found the exact perfect combination. I think he may have been bluffing, because all of the pieces looked the same to me.
After we popped the hood, he gave me a basic primer on what we would be doing. He popped a cap off of the first one, slipped the socket down into the cylinder, and, after a few turns, pulled out a spark plug. Easy as that. I decided I would contribute by opening a beer.
Turns out, I would have more responsibility than that. “Here,” my neighbor said, handing me the socket. My first inclination was to set in back in the tool chest, because I could think of no other reason he would hand it to me. Apparently, I was supposed to take it from there.
So I just decided to follow his lead. I popped off the cap and slid the socket down in the cylinder. As I was about to loosen the spark plug, my neighbor said, “Be gentle. You don’t want to break it.” He told me it would be “bad.”
At this point, I felt like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, “fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing.”
If you recall, in Ghostbusters, “bad” was defined thusly: “Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.”
While I don’t think we were going to that extreme, it would certainly involve WAY more than me, a neighbor, a socket set and some beer. The main tool needed to repair that would be a checkbook.
So I was gentle. Very gentle. Like I was holding a duckling gentle. And, I am pleased to say, I did not break anything. The spark plugs came right out, and the new ones went right in. After the fourth one was installed, I was so pleased with myself I hopped in the car and cranked it. To my somewhat amazement, it cranked right up. I got out of the car to share a testosterone moment when my neighbor said, “Hey, one thing – generally, when you have a four cylinder, you want all four to work.” The little cap thing that goes over the spark plugs is, apparently, also critical. Or at least advised.
And while some of you may still say that what I did was mere maintenance, I maintain that, when you sum up my entire history of working on cars, this is by far the most extensive thing I have done under the hood, thereby qualifying it as repair. It was a learning experience, and I am glad I took part in it. Next time, I know exactly what I’ll do. I’ll see if they can change them at the auto parts store.