“I’ll jumpstart YOUR engine….”

Yesterday, at the tail end of a road trip to Philadelphia and New Jersey (“Death Before Road Construction”), my older sister was getting ready to take the nieces to various places when she found out that her car, just back from a few weeks in the shop after an accident, was somewhat disinclined to start.  I immediately speculated aloud that the problem was with the battery, since along with “the tires”, “the engine” and “the smokey thing”, it is one of the few car parts I can recognize.  My brother-in-law comes charging home from work, freshly purchased jumper cables in hand, and we set about the manly task of automobile repair.

I’ve seen jumper cables used many times.   My brother-in-law has a mechanical engineering degree from an Ivy league school.  The jumper cables have instructions on them.  We have, between us, something on the order of 12 years of college.

All of which makes it somewhat embarrassing that our first attempt to start my sisters car resulted in a lot of smoke, and the second would have probably ended in our blowing up both cars had Em not pointed out that we were doing it wrong.  She managed to straighten us out, we got the car started and my sister and brother-in-law head out, leaving Em and I to pack up and head back to Ohio.  We load up the car and as I turned the key in the ignition…silence.  I hate cars.

Its comforting to know I have a girl that knows much more about cars than me.  Also, cooking, credit scores, ironing, travel, technology and a whole host of other grown-up how-to’s, including actually having one of those job things.  But for all that I can still kick her ass in Tetris.