The Heat is On!

The radiator heat-o-meter gauge thingy on my car decided to start climbing the other day…. And it was just a short trip to the pasar malam…. To get some tau foo far….. but it was late, and all I actually DID manage to get was a healthy splatter of fish guts water from the friendly toothless fishmonger….. sigh….. must be my old ratty t-shirt….. but I digress….

So smelling like yesterday’s catch, I got back to my car….and drove home. 100 meters from home, I noticed the radiator heat-o-meter gauge thing going up…. Hmmm not a good sign…. I’m no car expert, but I know enough of its mechanics to know that the gauge thingy should never be higher than the middle line…. And that your eyebrow should rise progressively with the gauge…. And so… following that rule of thumb, I had the look of sheer HORROR frozen on my face by the time I got home!!!!

Alarm bells ringing…I rush home, opened the bonet and did an expert STARE.

*PHEW* nothing blew up….

And my look of sheer HORROR relaxed to one of just SHOCK.

Next…. I did the most Macguyver thing I could think of…… I checked the water tank thingy next to the radiator…..

And Lo and Behold!!!! My look of SHOCK turned into one of SURPRISED SHOCK! (with exclamation mark!).

The water tank with plastic hose tube thingy was EMPTY! Dry as the sahara…..

That’s what you get I suppose for not really checking…. My poor car!

So I filled her up…. Could her the hiss as the first drops hit the radiator while I was filling in the tank… aiyoh…. How my heart ached…. Sigh….

So problem solved! My look of SURPRISED SHOCK! slowly relaxed to one of CONCERN.

Concern over my TYPICAL LADY DRIVER-ness….. sigh….

*Fast forward a few days…*

So my car ran pretty much like normal after that…. For a few days….

Then Saturday came along…. And I was designated driver for my parents’ errand running.

Of course it HAD to be a scorcher of a day…..

And 30 mins into driving around town, I noticed that I was looking MILDLY SURPRISED when I checked myself in the mirror….. asked myself why…. And then glanced the way of the radiator heat-o-meter gauge thingy…DAMN! It was rising again….

40 mins into driving and it had gone ¾ way up…. That’s when the (by now kinda familiar) SHEER LOOK OF HORROR plastered itself on my face….

And, as if for good measure, I realized that we were NO WHERE close to home yet….. another 20 mins of driving lay ahead of me….. and half of that, was me being held up by red lights and traffic snarls…..

By then, I had passed the SHEER LOOK OF HORROR line and my face was slowly arranging itself into the *^%$&^%$^*&^%@ (in Hokkien – we WERE driving around Klang) KILL ME NOW look…

I declared it DefCon 5 there and then…… Heart racing, body leaning forward, I stared, sulked, scowled, motioned impatiently, swore at and almost spat at anything in my way of home…. It wasn’t one of my prettiest moments in life I must say….

Reached home…. The gauge was just touching the red zone…… I IMMEDIATELY popped the bonet, and caught of whiff of “burnt something”…. Oh NO!!!!!!!!!!!

No staring this time….. I went into auto-pilot and reached for the garden hose….. and hosed my car’s insides down…. (Flashback :I have an uncle who used to run a chicken farm… and on hot days, he’d hose the crates and crates of chickens in his lorry down…to cool them down, so that they don’t DIE……... Same logic applied here…..)

Everything the water touched under the car bonet sizzled and spat angrily. Steam rose, and I continued swearing in my bad Hokkien (in my head…. I have very decent neighbours)…

10 mins into hosing, and the insides of my car STILL steamed and sizzled…. I was almost in tears by then….. firstly for my car and secondly for my bad Hokkien….

After flooding the garden…. And deciding that my car’s not going to blow up…. I stood there and inspected the water tank thingy. Empty. Again!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!

SHOOT! Something’s leaking…. DAMN!

I knew that I needed to get her checked….. but logic dictated that I let her cool down a bit….. so I went into the house, decided I needed some cooling down too….. made myself an apple vodka cocktail and slept.

*Approximately 2 hours later*

I woke up, inspected the car….. still hadn’t blown up… phew! And drove to the mechanic, 5 mins away.

I walked up to the foreman and in my embarrassingly halting Hokkien somehow managed to convey the message that my radiator almost blew up.

He looked at the car, then suspiciously at me… and then opened up the water tank thingy. It was FULL. (I smiled smugly and he softened his gaze at me)…. Next he opened up the radiator cap….. and started frowning. He stuck his finger into the mouth of the radiator then looked up at me questioningly. I of course looked back at him even MORE questioningly….

He then took a deep deep breath… and asked very very s-l-o-w-l-y…… if I had filled water into the radiator recently.

No. I answered.

He then asked, again very slowly, when was the LAST time I filled water into the radiator.

Oh. You’re SUPPOSED to fill in water into the radiator? I asked.

I was about to tell him that I had NEVER done anything of the sort cause the radiator cap tells me in BIG RED WARNING letters “DO NOT OPEN!” (and in much smaller letters “while hot”) And since I fill up the water tank thingy regularly… like when it dries up……. But I didn’t have to say anything…

I guess my earlier answer made it clear just what he was dealing with….. such instinct! Must be the 30 years of experience as a foreman….

Anyways, he patiently filled up my radiator. It took him 2 trips with a big ass 5 litre bottle to fill it up…. And then he let the engine run for a good 10 mins…. All the while checking, sometimes half diving into the bonet with his flash light, sometimes ducking under my car…checking and re-checking.

After that, we turned to me and said very patiently, that there was nothing wrong with my car. No leaks, no cracks. Just an empty radiator….. (and a dumb owner) ß no, he didn’t say it… out loud at least.

The wash of relief over me that instant was overshadowed only by the sudden feeling of being INCREDIBLY DUMB standing there, talking to the very very patient foreman, who never once made any snide remarks, or crack any “typical lady driver” jokes….

He didn’t even charge me for his meticulous checking and 2 trips of water that day.

Sigh. So I’m relieved. Cause my car didn’t blow up… and I don’t really have to drive around with the SHEER LOOK OF HORROR on my face no more…. Phew!