[tonycarreon]

my parents bought me my first car - a 1981 toyota celica - in 1991. it was a good car to learn what not to do on, thankfully the car was only $300. we never replaced the missing muffler...

anyway, it had a coolant leak and an oil leak. but i didn't like getting dirty so i never bothered to check the fluids. since school was only 1.5 miles away it ran pretty well for a while. but after taking it 35 miles with virtually no oil and barely any coolant (oil and coolant light flashing most of the way) it wasn't happy.

when i got home my father proceeded to explain to me in no uncertain terms the importance of both oil and coolant (he wasn't happy when i joked that i always knew to keep gas in it). he then stood there while i checked and filled both. oddly the car continued to "run" for a few more months until i bought my own car and sold it to a scrap yard.

non-mechanical was my second car. the steering wheel + horn assembly developed a short whereby any turn of the wheel would cause the horn to blare until the wheel was straightened again. turns and corners gave me so unkind looks and finger gestures. to fix it, i removed the horn from under the hood.