A couple days ago, I moved from my small quaint hometown to the bustling metropolis of St. Paul. Well, okay, Maple Grove isn’t exactly small (50,000 people) or quaint (it’s a fast-growing second-ring suburb of Minneapolis) anymore. In fact, I’m not sure it’s ever been. And to be fair, St. Paul isn’t exactly bustling these days despite being the state capital. Not that St. Paul is deserted. Far from it. Rather, it’s the quiet, mature sibling of the Twin Cities pair.

The move came about because Mutak was renting a room, and I needed a room to rent. The stars shined on the deal, and soon I found myself renting a room from Mutak.

To move my stuff, I needed a few things: Boxes? Check. Either I went dumpster diving a grocery store, or I “borrowed” some boxes from other people, but whatever my super-secret method, I had ample quantities of boxes. People? Check. Tyler graciously volunteered to help me, and Mutak and Jimmers were both at the ready at Mutak’s place. Booze? Whoa, settle down there tiger. Not until *after* the move. Lots of driving, you know. Vehicles? Ah yes, the reason for the Booze Ban, or BB as I like to call it. They also happen to be an excellent manner in which to transport said several boxes. Tyler offered his truck, which meant I needed one more for myself.

As luck would have it, there’s a truck floating around in my family. I admit, it was a bit freaky the first time I saw this huge hovering Chevy carousing around the house, but that’s just the sort of thing one gets used to. Great! So now I had access to a big ol’ American 4×4.

Or did I?

No, no I didn’t. For you see, while I was crafting my detailed moving war plan, my sister, unbeknownst to me, claimed the truck for the weekend. D’oh! We were at an impasse. I dug in, with Herbert Cohen (in book form!) as my aide. After tense negotiations (“Can I use the truck on Sunday?” “Ok”) the matter was resolved and the only thing separating me from moving triumph was time itself.

I think that time was dropping X because before I knew it, Sunday run up behind me and plowed me over. Wow, days of the week sure have inertia. Or maybe just bad brakes. Or maybe the day itself had a little too much fun on Saturday night and just had terrible reaction time. Whatever the reason, Sunday apologized and backed up to the morning so that I could continue as planned.

Sunday morning, I drove to my sister’s place of work and traded her my Bonneville for the Chevrolet.

I drove back and did the move with the entire aforementioned group helping out.

(What were you expecting, a play-by-play of the move? Nah.)

The move complete, I traded back the truck for my sedan.

When I drove off in the Bonne, I noticed that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t just that there was a back seat or that members of the U.S. Olympic Women’s Volleyball Team occupied said back seat. No, that sort of thing happens every day. Well, not really. Usually the front seat too. But I digress.

What was strange was the way the Bonne’s 3800-series V6 engine was vibrating. Okay, so I acknowledge that my car can get a little bit bouncy at high speeds. But this was completely different. These symptoms were similar to a single-cylinder misfire, but not quite as severe. Frustrating, indeed, but a cursory check revealed nothing and I needed to get to work the next day. As the car was still drivable, I left the mystery for a future problem.



I admit that I wanted to blame my sister for whatever ailed my red automobile. The problem is that I had no rational reason to blame her. There was a time when that little logical fallacy wouldn’t have mattered, but, I dunno, I guess I’ve matured past that puerile state.

Down, but not out, I trudged on, jittery car and all.

Today during my lunch hour, the problem reached a head, and I decided to poke my head into the jungle of emissions controls and electronic accessories crowding my engine bay. “We have a breach in the warp core!” Lt. LaForge reported. “Can we use the Heisenburg compensators to redirect the deuterium more precisely through the dilithium crystal lattice?” I asked. “What?” “Oh, I was just making that up as I went along. I thought that that’s all you did too.” Within seconds, I was beamed off the Enterprise and back into the parking lot in front of my car. “Highly illogical,” Spock said.

The parking lot, being firmly planted in reality, served as an excellent springboard for finding the *actual* problem: one of my spark plug wires had fallen from its clip onto the hot exhaust manifold. The heat melted away most of the insulation and presented a convenient route to ground for the 35,000-volt spark potential.

“You da man!” I extolled my self.



In short order, I drove down the street to Welle Auto Supply. Iiiiittt w-w-was-s-s b-b-b-bump-p-py, but I didn’t mind, thinking — nay, KNOWING — that my car would soon be jitter-free.

“Cha-ching!” went the cash register, “Pop! Pop!” went the plug wire boots, and “Ahhhhh” went Keacher, happy to see the story pleasantly resolved.