Oh, the winter blues! It’s bitterly cold outside, but we have to go to the store and also bring some high nutritional food to Spur, our old gelding, to help him through the cold times. Before the invention of remote (also called command) start, we had to brave the elements and start the vehicle with the spare set of keys and let it run to properly warm up. Enter remote start! Just sit in your nice cozy living room and press the appropriate button on the vehicle key fob, and voila! The vehicle will start! Well, most of the time anyway.
In the olden days, ‘remote start’ entailed the youngest sibling having to run out to the barn to feed the horses oats before the dad would hitch them to the wagon. Methane gas would, for the most part, keep the wagon driver warm as long as he could stand the smell!
Our truck has remote start, but we must be right up beside the driver’s door for it to function. We have tried to have that remedied by both changing fob batteries as well as discussing it with Ford service technicians, but to no avail. I guess the slogan “Ford has a better idea” doesn’t apply in our situation.
We get to have fun with Casey again the day I am writing this. Justin dropped off their van early this morning so Marion can pick Casey up at the daycare this afternoon. In the meantime, Marion decided to go to the store and post office using the van. She decided to use the remote start on the van. OK, there are two fobs on the key chain. Which one is for the remote start?
We both examined the fobs closely. There are four little buttons on each of the fobs, and they have little white drawings on them, indicating the function of the buttons. None of them are clearly marked as a start button, and Marion refused to push any of them, in case she accidentally would permanently lock all the doors! I recall many years ago, when we had rented a brand new Ford Lincoln. A button was required to push for the gas door to open, and I couldn’t figure out which button to push, and on Justin’s advice I pushed all the buttons and voila, the gas door opened just like that! With that in mind, I grabbed the fobs from Marion and tried to do the same, but she grabbed them back from me before I could do that, and that was that.
Marion had to start the van the old fashioned way in minus 25 degrees Celsius. She was not a happy camper! I stayed inside enjoying the warmth of our house. I mean, what are wives for, eh? Our dog Lady stayed inside with me, curled up at my feet, longing for her “latrine” (the lawn) to warm up so that she doesn’t have to make her visits so short!
Knut ran into a neighbourhood bar, banged his fist on the counter and in a booming and challenging voice said, “OK, who is the strongest man in here?”
“I am!” said Thor, a tall muscular fellow.
“Good,” said Knut, “can you please come outside and help push my car?”
Morten was a financially-strapped student that drove an old, ratty, raggedy car. He limped it in to the repair garage and asked the mechanic his opinion with respect to the cost of fixing his car. The mechanic examined the poor old jalopy, turned to Morten and said, “Well, it seems to me that what you really need is a radiator cap solution!”
“Really?” asked Morten, trying not to sound too confused. “Are you telling me that the radiator cap isn’t holding enough pressure?”
“Actually,” said the mechanic, “that’s part of the problem. You need to undo the radiator cap, lift it up and drive another car under it, remove that radiator cap and then you can fit your radiator cap on to that radiator, and your problem should be solved!”
“So please tell me,” said Ole, “what do you call 100 penguins in the Arctic?”
“Lost!” said Sven, “really, really lost! Penguins live in Antarctica!”
A young nun who worked at the local Catholic health care agency was driving to her next appointment when she ran out of gas. She was wearing her habit and walked to the nearest gas station where she asked the attendant if she could borrow a jerry can, fill it with enough gas to start the car and drive back to the gas station for a fill up. The gas jockey regretfully told her that the only gas can they have had already been loaned out to another customer, but he was sure the customer would be back shortly if she cared to wait. The nun was in a hurry to get to work, so she walked back to her car. She rummaged through it trying to find something she could carry to the station and fill with gas. She saw a bedpan that she was taking to a bedridden patient. Always the resourceful one, she grabbed the bedpan and ran to the gas station, filled it with gas and brought it back to her car. Ole and Sven were sitting outside enjoying the sunny morning, when Ole spotted the nun appearing a bit flustered and pouring a liquid into the gas tank from a bedpan. Ole looked at Sven and said, “if that car starts, I’ll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life!”
