Toot

Hello World,

Some of us, instead of being here at their weekly post, are busy trying their hands at fending off the Saracen interlopers in Jerusalem, or something like that anyway. Actually, it wasn't the medieval Crusades of lore and legend that I volunteered for, but the Greater New York Billy Graham Crusade in Flushing Meadows Park this weekend, and so I've been there for four days, working behind the scenes and doing their data entry and other information gathering services. Luckily, we have Bill to fill in, holding down the fort at home (no Saracens there!) and in the Editor's chair for today, with this story from several years ago that ties in nicely with my horn story from a couple of weeks ago --

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TOOT

I dropped my car off for its inspection this morning and when I picked it up after work, Dennis said it passed with flying colors. (Of course, he makes SURE it passes, if you catch my drift!) Anyway, he left it parked at the curb in the afternoon sun - not a good thing to do with a black car with a maroon interior! So we schmoozed for a while and as we were standing there with the usual assortment of macho types that hang around the service station, a couple of senoritas strolled past on their way home from high school. This elicited the usual thinly-disguised appraisal from the group - one of the few times I am truly embarrassed to be a human male (and NO, I wasn't looking at them, even if they wanted ALL of us to. Which seemed to be the case.) It was about Dennis's quitting time so the group of oglers broke up at that point and I was finally able to get into the station proper and pay Den for the inspection. And off I went. Well, almost.

I got in and started her up and pulled away from the curb. At the next corner I went to make a left onto Webster Avenue and heard an interesting "Tootle-oot" from my own horn. Hmmm. I never even touched it - who could, the steering wheel was so hot?! At the next intersection, the light was red so I got in the left lane to head around the block towards home. And my horn started tooting. All by itself.

"TOOOOt toot too-lleoot TOOT toot tootle" And then it stopped. And right in front of the car, crossing the street, were the two young girls who had sashayed past the station moments before. Talk about embarrassed! Here they were, still strolling, but this time they were staring into my face as if I had accosted them wearing nothing but a raincoat! Then came the Lucy moment.

"TOOTlleeeeTOOTlleeeetoot" it went again and this time they really looked MAD. That was when I held my hands up in the Universal Gesture of Innocence - and it tooted right at them with my hands at my shoulders! They looked at the car and looked at my shrugging shoulders and upraised hands and one of them said to the other.

"Oom, that's coo-ah. I have to see maybe Robbie coo make his cah do dat. Hey, that's coo-ah, man!"

The light turned green and I drove around the corner back to Dennis's. When I pulled in, I left the car running on the apron and went inside to find him. He was changing into his civvies in the bathroom and when he came out, we both went to look at the car. As we walked out of the station, it started very softly going "tootootootootototolllltotototootototoolllllle" as if it were clearing its throat. I told him about the Senoritas and he started to laugh. "It's the horn pads on these Fords," he said, "If you leave them parked in the sun, it swells up or something and the horn starts to blow. Happened when you were turning the wheel, right?" I agreed and he imparted the "solution."

"OK, what you do is this," he said "Pound..." BEEEP **BANG BANG*** BEEEEEEP "...on the horn pad...." BEEEP **BANG BANG** BEEEEEEEEP "...up at the top here until it stops."

And it stopped.

"OK, Bill?"

"I guess so - did you see my ear drums anywhere around here?" I said "Hey, your neighbors must love having you in the vicinity!"

"Hey, they can't complain - I change their fuses for free. See you!"

And I got in the car, armed with my new knowledge and the determination to NEVER have to "fix" the horn myself. Especially within earshot of Robbie or his friends!
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Well, personally, I think Bill is onto something there with the self-actuating automatic horn, although I can see where that might cause any number of problems, depending on what else is happening when it decides to activate!