Friday, July 20, 2007 Transformation By Rene Lizada Papa's Table
I THINK my car is a transformer. No kidding I think it is.
It started about a month ago when I noticed quite a few things. They seemed innocent at first but as I look back at those incidents and situations I really believe in my heart that my car is actually a transformer. And I even know its name.
About a month ago our car started to devour diesel fuel at an alarming rate. And since my wife who is sticker when it comes to fuel consumption noticed it too my life became a constant struggle on how to conserve gas.
I thought of running the car in neutral while cruising, shutting off the aircon while driving, walking, not playing the radio but instead sing, or plan the trips of everyone else. I tried practically all those things but they did not work.
Running in neutral gives me the creeps because I feel I am not in control.
Shutting the aircon did not help either because I drove faster and thus consumed more gas. Walk? That was really stupid because why would I walk when I can drive! Idiot! Playing the radio would have worked were it not for the audience who demanded that I shut up.
And still I could not solve the gas consumption which was getting to be stressor because I have to look at the gauge every ten minutes. I decided that this had to stop because my neck could not take it anymore. And so I asked some people the possible reasons why there was this huge appetite for fuel for this transformer of mine.
Since our car is diesel someone suggested that I have the injection pumps checked. Well I think it was the injection pumps. I really cannot remember the term for it but I had them checked in a shop suggested by a colleague of my wife. The place was somewhere in Buhangin.
And so one early morning I brought the transformer to the shop. I told him the problem. He seemed like a cool guy and he told me to come back in the afternoon as he had to check the vehicle. So I left.
So I came back in the afternoon and he told me that the pumps were okay and that the problem was something else. I cringed. And he explained the problem and while I was listening to him I was preparing for the worst. I asked him how much it would cost. He gave me a quotation.
I was relieved because to my limited knowledge that was all right. I told the wife and she talked to the mechanic. He seemed to have gotten pale while talking. But my wife is such a great haggler that she was able to reduce the cost. Bravo Chona! What will I ever do without you! And with that I had to come back another day to have the car fixed.
And so I came back another day and had the car fixed. But it was really not fixed because there was something strange. Something else was in the car. I heard other noises that I had not heard before, alien noises. I told Chona about it and she immediately called the mechanic who managed through it all. He went back to the car and did some thing and guess what it turned out fine. The noise was gone and he felt like Optimus Prime.
For the next few days everything was fine. But once a transformer, always a transformer. One day while I was driving I suddenly felt the wheel tremble. The trembling turned to shaking and the shaking became worse. Even the children felt the wiggle of the car.
My wife who I think felt it also but pretended not to notice it. But there was no escaping it. Our car was now officially a blender. And to make things worse the fuel consumption started to climb and when that happens, Chona starts to notice.
I tried to ignore the wiggle and the tremors for a few days but it really did not help because after I step out of the car I felt like I have become juice. And the gas, the gas, was bad. And so I had to tell Chona that we had to have it checked again. She almost turned into a deception.
But she had not choice this time because she was a real witness to the car's jiggling and even a bit of rattling. The only problem was where to have it fixed. We could not go to Cybertron even if we wanted to because it was just too far and the gas consumption nga was really bad. There had to be another way. (Wait for the sequel!)
