…where the personality you put into something starts to cross with a real suspicious set of traits from that object, which starts to make you really feel that the object has got some kind of soul.
I guess, after 37 years on this planet, my car’s collected enough quirks and fiddley bits, and having been hand built, largely, has quite a lot of personality. But this morning, I’d spent a solid 10 minutes trying to coax her to start. We’d passed through ‘no longer going to be early’ and ‘on time’ to ‘do I ring them and say I can’t get my car to start’?
I’d got a work lamp outside, a 1lb lump hammer to ‘tap’ the sticking starter and she still wasn’t starting. I’d get one shot at the starting thing, and it’d then stick, and then I’d curse, run out and tap it. Sometimes it’d free off, and then I could have another go.
Finally, in desparation I sat there and I said:
“Please Rebecca, I *promise* I’ll fix you tomorrow, I *promise*. Please start.”; Turned the key and was met with the completely unexpect and slightly startling sound of the uneven beat of my engine… Not only that, but she idled while I packed away the work lamp, extension lead etc, and washed my hands.
I actually made it into work a mere 2 minutes late.
And I’ve kept my promise, well, actually I worked on her when I got home from Xmas shopping (still not got everything, not managed to send my cards to ‘merkians (bloody post office shut 2 minutes before I got there)). And found much to my distress: uneven running – related to crap points I suspect. Poor starting: points now so worn away that there’s virtually no heel left. they are wearing *insanely* fast. I never got the ‘running well through correctly set points’ phase. Starter motor – casing has cracked. Starter motor sticking due to insufficient lubrication. New graphite applied (thanks to Trey’s habit of ‘saving’ pencils from work, I have a moderate supply of graphite).
In other news, someone poo’d in my hand today – while I was wearing gloves and had a wipe in my hands, thankfully.
