Mechanical Madness
By Gentry Patterson
“Seven HUNDRED dollars?? For some spark plugs??”
I couldn’t believe it. The phone line was quiet for a moment, and then a very clearly impatient, gruff kind of voice huffed back-
“That’s the price. Are you bringing it in today? If so you better get down here in the next hour or we ain’t gonna get it done ‘til the end of the week.”
I don’t know about you, but there wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell I was gonna pay $700 just to have some teenager at Firestone unscrew eight spark plugs and then screw in eight new ones. I let the man know I wasn’t interested in his services and hung up the phone. I said the word “Ridiculous” under my breath. Seven hundred dollars? All you have to do is screw them in!
After calling around and receiving no less than five equally astronomical estimates, I cursed the mechanic profession, the labor shortage, each specific shop in my town, and even my poor old van. Fine, I thought to myself. It’s settled. I’m gonna do it myself.
I drove over the hill to the Advanced Autoparts on Greensprings, a hectic five-lane highway about two miles from my house. I slapped eight brand spankin’ new spark plugs on the counter, and to my glee, the total came out to a mere fifty-four dollars and eighty-two cents. Hah! Booyah! I grinned huge, despite the suspicious glance it earned me from the guy at the register. I couldn’t help myself.
The author, elbow deep in his van’s engine.
Twenty minutes later, I was elbow deep in the engine, whistling a fine tune while I removed the air intake and a few other things in between me and my prey. I was hunting eight worn-out spark plugs and I was saving over six hundred bucks. Life was good. Wrenching away, I started thinking about my six hundred greenbacks, safe and sound in the pocket of my jeans. Steak dinner tonight? Champagne? I kept whistling.
One spark plug down. Easy peasy. Just seven more to go. I chuckled triumphantly and kept on wrenching. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. I couldn’t believe some sucker somewhere was coughing up $700 for this. I set my eyes on the eighth and final plug, way down deep in the back of the engine bay. My eyes narrowed. Time to finish this thing.
This eighth plug was in a weird spot. It was under a fuel rail. It was under a lot of awkwardly placed things, to be totally frank. No big deal though, I thought to myself. No spark plug is safe from me. I stuck four different extensions on my trusty ratchet, turning it into an unwieldy, snake-like chain of tools. With the spark plug socket firmly in place on the end, I carefully weaved the whole apparatus around every obstacle and down into the shaft, where that eighth spark plug waited patiently for removal.
I felt the socket come firmly to a stop around the top of the spark plug. Phew. Alright, I thought. Easy goes it. I tentatively gave the whole ratchet assembly a twist, and boom, smooth as butter, somewhere down in that shaft the spark plug yielded. HAH! I laughed out loud. Too easy!
Clickety clickety clickety clickety clickety, I spun the plug right out of the hole. I stuck the new one in the socket and dropped the whole apparatus back down into the now empty cylinder. I thought to myself, “I’m about to drive myself straight to a steak dinner.”
I gave the ratchet a twist. There was resistance, and then a sudden release of tension. Uh oh. I tried turning the ratchet again, and it just spun freely in place. Oh, no. No no no no. Come on. I turned it again, and again the ratchet, extensions, socket, and plug all together spun free as the wind.
“Come on! Are you serious?” I yelled. I felt the steak dinner spin freely out of my future. I had made a fatal error. I had stripped the threads. With the threads stripped, there was no way for me to screw in the final spark plug. I was completely stuck.
I tossed my tools into the cab and sat in the passenger seat of my van for a few minutes, pondering my situation. This was a disaster. Dejected, I slowly made my way up the steps back into my apartment. My girlfriend was inside waiting for me.
She looked at me inquisitively. “Did you fix it?”
Head down, I had no choice but to explain my predicament. After a good laugh at my expense, she had this advice to share: “You should just call a mechanic.”
No way. There was no way I was going to give up that easily. Momma didn’t raise no quitter. I told my girlfriend this.
“Listen, Heather. Momma didn’t raise no quitter.”
She rolled her eyes. I hit YouTube for information. After three or four hours down the rabbit hole of amateur car repair videos, I devised a plan. I would use a special tool designed to insert into the cylinder, expand, and twist back out, cleaning and reforming the threads. It was called a “back tap,” and once I had it, I’d be on my way. I ordered it with next-day delivery.
Two days later, no tool had arrived. A week passed. No tool. I started griping to Heather.
“What’s the deal? Supply chain issues? UPS lost the package?”
With a little less patience this time around, she shared her thoughts on the subject: “Just call a mechanic.”
Her words fell on deaf ears, and before my head hit the pillow I’d already ordered two more taps off the internet. Two, in case another one failed to show. I wasn’t giving up.
Finally, two days later, the tool arrived. Heather was out of town, which was a shame, because I was really looking forward to gloating once I got that engine purring. Even more than that though, I was looking forward to having a vehicle again, so I set to work. A simple three-step process lay ahead of me.
Step One: Lower the tool into the shaft.
I lowered the tool back into the spark plug shaft.
Step Two: Expand the inner rod.
The tool was so far down into the engine that I could only grasp the top of it with three fingers. Pushing apart with two fingers and a thumb, I barely managed to pop out the inner rod. This was harder than I expected, but I did it. I started grinning in anticipation of success.
Step Three: Twist the tool back out of the cylinder.
Pinching hard so I wouldn’t drop it, I tried to give it a turn. It turned, but didn’t catch. I tried again. Still not catching. I decided that maybe my angle of approach was wrong, and moved my arm a little further into the engine bay.
This was a mistake.
My elbow bumped into a hose, and my greasy fingertips slipped off of the tip of the tap. The thing shot down into the cylinder like a spat watermelon seed.
I sat there for a split second, dumbstruck. Then, frantically, I started fishing around in the cylinder with the tips of my fingers, trying to grab a hold of the tap. No dice. I ran into the house and grabbed six different tools at random that looked like they could fish the thing out. One by one, I tried each. One by one, they all failed me in my time of need.
It was at this point that I thought to myself, Huh. Maybe I should call a mechanic.
No sooner had this thought crossed my mind was I stuck with a series of mental images of my personal heroes. I saw Shackleton, fearlessly crossing the Drake Passage without an ounce of quit in his body. I saw Hillary and Norgay, standing at the top of Mt. Everest. Aaron Ralston in that canyon. David Goggins. Rocky Balboa.
Momma didn’t raise no quitter.
This was a test, I thought to myself. Was I going to give up? Or was I going to persevere? I set out on foot for the Advanced Autoparts two miles away, feeling daring and proud of my own tenacity. I was definitely going to have this van fixed before Heather got back.
I was gonna have it fixed today.
Two miles later, I found myself sprinting across five lanes of Greensprings traffic and into the store. The little bell jangled at the door and an employee asked if there was anything he could help me with today. I tried to explain my situation without sounding like a complete moron. I must not have been very convincing, because when I was done explaining, he suggested I take it to the Firestone shop about half a mile from my house.
“They’ll get you fixed up real good down there at that Firestone.”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” I replied. “I, uh, I already talked to them.”
My mind flashed back to my first call about the spark plugs. I’ll keep my 700 dollars, thank you!
“You got anything here you think might work?” I asked.
He looked at me for a moment, then walked me over to the counter, where he grabbed a magnet mounted on a telescoping pole.
“You could try this,” he suggested, a little unenthusiastically.
The magic wand.
“Awesome, yes, I’ll take it,” I replied, slapping ten dollars on the counter. With my new magnet stick in hand like a magic wand, I ran back across the highway and jogged the two miles back to my apartment, where my van lay waiting.
I popped the hood, adjusted my magic magnet stick to the appropriate length, and waved it over to the spark plug shaft. I heard a tink sound as the tap stuck to the magnet. Immediately I grinned. Against all odds, this was going to work! I pulled up on the magnet stick, and to my dismay, felt the weight of the tap fall back into the hole. I stuck the magnet back down. Tink. I pulled up again. Again, the tap fell back down the hole.
It was hopeless.
I finally had to admit it. This situation was out of my hands. Not only that, but I was about to cough up a heck of a lot more than $700 for my hard-headedness. Totally defeated, I decided to call my mom for some words of encouragement. She answered the phone, we chatted for a bit, and then I explained to her the situation I’d gotten myself in.
Without hardly a minute of hesitation, she asked, “Why didn’t you just take it to the mechanic?”
Sometimes in life, persevering in the face of adversity is just dumb.
It’s a truth that’s rarely talked about. In a culture steeped in motivational posters, self-help podcasts, and heroic stories of brave individuals who never backed down, who could blame you for feeling guilty for even considering throwing in the towel? Didn’t you see that Gatorade commercial? Or read that article about the entrepreneur who ran eight businesses into the ground before becoming a bazillionare? How can you live with yourself?
We’re led to believe that quitting is weakness. It’s “unmanly.” It’s a sin against yourself.
In reality, however, there are often times when it really is just time to give it up. When I tried to fix things with my van, my situation got progressively worse. If you’re trying to do something, and you keep failing, and with each failure, things get worse instead of better, then I have some news for you…
It’s probably time to quit.
When I marched over to the Advanced Autoparts on Greensprings, I wasn’t acting rationally. I was acting stubbornly. I was letting my ego take the reins. If you’re persisting through failure because your ego has taken the reins, I’ve got some more news for you…
It’s probably time to quit.
Quitting done appropriately can save you frustration, pain, and perhaps most importantly, time. I spent weeks on this van. Some folks waste far more than mere weeks. Some people spend years in a doomed relationship. Some people spend years on the wrong career path. They just keep failing but refuse to quit. There’s nothing admirable or honorable about persevering when it’s done out of stubbornness or ego. It’s a waste of time, and it’s tragic to watch.
Let go of that unfixable thing. You can’t do or be everything. Spend your time on something you can actually improve, and don’t feel guilty about it. Be free! Just quit!
Gentry Patterson is an American writer and cartographer living in Birmingham, Alabama. He loves to be outside and enjoys spending time with a good book. In addition to his work as a contributing editor, he leads the Dead Foot Book Club.
