TEAM LAST CALL

I’m not what you’d call a manly man. I’ve never been very good at traditionally manly things like “fixing a leak” or “changing a tire” or “being able to grow a full beard” or “being shaped like a man.” I’m not one of those guys you turn to in an emergency, unless your emergency is a kidnapping for which the only ransom is a sonnet about boogers.

I can’t drive a stick shift. I can barely tell the difference between a screwdriver and a wrench. I can name more songs from the “Flashdance” soundtrack than professional athletes.

But none of these traits is as difficult to deal with as my complete helplessness when it comes to cars. My name is Jeff, and I am automotively challenged.

As a man, you’re expected to “just understand” cars in the way that virtuoso musicians “just understand” their instruments, or the way that Hummer drivers “just understand” how to cope with the fact that they are terrible people and nobody likes them. It’s not something you learn, it’s something you’re born with. Like how a good writer “just understands” that a preposition is something a sentence should never end with.

For most of my male friends, identifying and fixing a car-related problem is like a reflex, as automatic as blinking when you sneeze or paging through your wife’s Victoria’s Secret catalog whenever she leaves the house. But I was apparently born without the automotive gene, as well as the athletic gene and the gene that tells you not to wear black socks with shorts.

I “just understand” cars about as much as Anna Nicole Smith “just understands” molecular biology. Nine times out of 10, I can figure out where the key goes to start the car, but beyond that, they’re pretty much a complete mystery to me. Like my wife, but without all the shoes.

My helplessness in the face of mechanical problems is the giant oil drill in the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve of my self-esteem. Here I am, 28 years old and about as capable of fixing a car as Fox News is of reporting an unbiased fact. The embarrassment is crippling.

So you can imagine how, when my car sputtered to a stop outside of a party a few weeks ago, I was filled with absolute dread. I like my humiliation in bite-size portions. To be revealed as a helpless half-man in front of my wife is tolerable, if not routine; but to expose an entire house full of strangers to my wimpering girlishness was just too much.

In a moment of optimism, I thought that maybe the problem with my car was something so obvious that I could figure it out myself. Maybe I’d pop open the hood to discover a pack of squirrels hanging out on my engine, smoking cigars and playing poker. I’d put my hands on my hips and shake my head in mock frustration. “Look, guys,” I’d say, “You’re going to have to find another place for your poker game. Now shoo!” And then the squirrels would run off, problem solved.

“It was just a little issue with the gas-valve piston pump,” I’d tell the guys at the party. “I tweaked the alternator clutch hose and oscillated the catalytic viscosity belts. She’s running like new.” They’d pat me on the back, hand me a Coors Light and usher me into the den to watch some football, scratch ourselves, and braid each other’s back hair, or whatever manly men do when they’re left alone.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a pack of squirrels at all. Instead, I opened the hood to discover a bubbling globule of corrosion on the ... on the, uh ... thinger. Now, I’m no mechanic, but I was pretty sure I’d found the root of the problem.

The thing about manly men is that they can detect the sound of a hood being popped open from a mile away. They’re like sharks sniffing out blood in the water, except the blood is engine grease and the sharks have hairy forearms and need to pull up their pants in the back.

My chances of survival were becoming slimmer by the minute. I started to panic. My palms were sweating like Jessica Simpson at a spelling bee.
I jumped back into the car, sank down in the seat and began to frantically evaluate my options. One, I could set fire to the car. That way, I would look less like a bumbling idiot and more like a hapless victim.

“We were just pulling up to the party when the car suddenly burst into flames!” I’d explain to everyone as the firetruck pulled away. “I just wish I’d had some time to get under the hood with my tools and tackle this problem like a man! That’s what really burns me up!” Then the other men would pat me on the back, hand me a Coors Light and usher me inside the house, where we’d eat our weight in beef jerky and light our own farts, or whatever manly men do to show solidarity in a time of crisis.

Or two, I could be mature about the whole situation, walk inside the house and admit to the other men that I needed help.

I was just about to strike the match when my wife pointed out that people were already watching us from the front window. Defeated, I hung my head and began the long march up the path to the house of humiliation. Several men were already huddled by the front door, giving me a look of consternation that said, “This nancy probably doesn’t even have a favorite NASCAR driver.” I might as well have been prancing up the path in a pair of My Little Pony underwear. Which I technically was, but they didn’t know that.

I took a deep breath, glanced over at my wife and headed through the door to put the final nail in the coffin of my manliness. Goodbye, old friend. At least we tried.