He’s My Hero

I’m a girly-girl when it comes to all things automotive. I’ve been driving for twenty-mumble years and can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve put gas in a car. My husband, on the other hand, is what you might call an automotive enthusiast… which may explain why he’s always been willing to get gas for me.

A little bit ago one of the kids came in to get me. “Dad wants you to ride with him for a test drive in the truck.” I do love to ride along with the man, so I followed the child out the door. My husband had been working on the truck most of the day and was literally covered with greasy black smudges. I was appalled! “Aren’t you even going to wash your hands?!?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Come on.” So I went.

We drove out into the country and he explained to me all the various things he had changed… maintenance work mainly… involving literally gallons of fluid! It’s a diesel truck, which apparently requires more maintence than a gas engine… or maybe it’s the size of the truck (1 ton) that has to do with that. I dunno. Usually I just guess it’s the “carburator”! (Even after multiple explanations from my dear husband, I really have no idea what a carburator is. I just like the way it sounds!)

That’s the background for the quote I’m going to post. I’ve been in the mood to read a Grace Livingston Hill book after visiting “Neat and Dainty as a Flower”. So I picked Crimson Mountain. The heroine’s car breaks down in the first chapter, and this quote fits me to a T:

“The car had always been kept in order for her by the man at the garage and there was no one but herself to depend upon. She hadn’t an idea of what she was going to do when she got the hood open, but that was what all men did first when anything was the matter with a car–they opened the hood. So she struggled to open it and throw it back nonchalantly as she had seen the men in the filling stations do…

She cast a troubled glance inside that mysterious engine, but nothing came of it. She had never had experience in machinery of any sort, and none of those pipes and tubes and screws made sense to her. For the first time it occurred to her as strange that anyone could have thought out and made a thing so complicated; and that being made, it could manage to carry people around the country.”

Fortunately for the heroine, the hero soon appears on the scene to rescue her… and fortunately for me, my “hero” is usually around when I need rescuing!