Owning your own car is one of the great luxuries of the 20th century (right up there with toasters that have working darkness knobs). Having the freedom to go anywhere whenever you want while consuming non-renewable resources at an incredible rate brings out a special kind of joy heretofore reserved for conquering warlords and revivalist ministers.

In my car, barring financial restraints, I could drive to Portland, or California, or even my parents' home in glorious Spokane in only a few hours. Windows unrolled, stereo blaring, exhaust trailing, I could drive to my heart's content, carving my paved trail through the hillsides of North America.

But there is a downside to conspicuous consumption. There is a constraint on the freedom you can experience flipping off motorists on this great nation's roadways.

The constraint I'm talking about is not our noble boys in blue -- those brave men and women who risk life and limb to give you tickets for jay-walking. No, I'm talking about the nearly constant maintenance and care required by the rolling money-pits we call automobiles.

My car is very special to me. I've had it for about five years, ever since my Mother forsook it for something roomier, more powerful, and less likely to explode on the freeway. It's a 1975 Buick Anti-Christ. Actually, it was born a Skylark, but let's face it, "The Anti-Christ" is far more romantic and appropriate. Also, my car would feel far inferior if it knew that it was actually only a Skylark and not the Anti-Christ (and let's face it, my car needs all the self-esteem it can beg for).

It got the nickname when it would mysteriously and spontaneously drop pieces of itself on the roadway (most notably, the transmission). After several expulsions of important car parts, I figured that the car was possessed by the devil.

I've had the Anti-Christ for about five years. And in that time I have effected a number of repairs on it (with the considerable help and talent of my father. Actually, I was mostly the guy who stood around and burned himself with the light). We replaced the engine, replaced the transmission, put on a new bumper, a new fender, a new exhaust system, painted it, changed the oil what seems like about a hundred times, and generally donated more sweat to one car than seems worth it.

The most recent bout of car repairs occurred during Christmas Break.

Sometime shortly after Thanksgiving, my roommate (a minor superhero hereafter referred to as Volt Man) was involved in some electrical . . . oddities that happened to my car. To wit, Volt Man was moving my car down the street when the battery cable combusted due to the addition of several volts of electricity generated by his touch. In the past, Volt Man has toppled the mighty electrical systems of an International Harvester Travel-All (which I'm assured is a car), a Cortez, and even a Volvo -- destroying, nay, obliterating most of them in electrical "accidents" that involved copious amounts of black smoke, frantic openings of the hood, and a certain amount of monetary reimbursement.

I got off comparatively lucky. All I really needed to do was replace the newly crisped battery cable. That went fine, but it highlighted a consistent problem with a Buick Skylark. Namely, the 1975 Sky, er Anti-Christ needs to have it's alternator replaced every three months or so. Well, that's a gross exaggeration, more like every three and half months.

For those of you unfamiliar with the workings of an automobile, the alternator is the little doo-hickey (sorry for the techno-speak) that insures (theoretically) that as your car's battery is being run-down in an effort to keep the car actually running, power the headlights, and blast "Queen's Greatest Hits" at extreme volume, that it is also being re-charged.

In most cars, this device works very well, in my car it's help was negligible at best. I think, at times, I may have had more success if we had cut the floorboards open and I had powered it Flintstone-style. But, I digress.

On most cars, there's a little light that pops on when your alternator isn't putting out quite enough electricity. In my car, it was almost constantly on. It got dimmer when you drove really fast. So, either my alternator was not, in the strictest sense, working correctly, or I was the victim of some space alien's practical joke.

Of course, it never occurred to me that the alternator wasn't really working. My brain told me that if only I could have gone a little faster, the light would have gone off and stayed off forever because I had defeated it in the time-honored tradition. Of course, I describe the problem to my Dad and he says, "It probably need a new alternator."

My Dad is fairly incredible when it comes to car diagnosis. I'd tell him that my car is making a strange sound. He'd ask me to describe it, and from 280 miles away he would correctly diagnose the problem.

"Dad, my car is making this weird whistling noise."

"Well, is it a low whistle, or is it higher in pitch?"

"Hmm, it's a high-pitched whistle."

"Well, it sounds like you need more grease on the farfnabble. Either that or we have to replace the donglebang."

And sure enough, I'd go home and he'd pop up the hood, and that darned donglebang would need replacing.

Over the years, my father and I have come up with a certain rituals in our car repairs, rituals that insure that the particular part we are replacing will not need to be replaced for at least one year. The first of these is that one of us has to dribble some car fluid down our arm for it to be a successful repair. It can be oil, anti-freeze, transmission fluid, gasoline, power-steering fluid, or brake fluid. It can't, however, be water. Water is too easily cleaned up and doesn't leave any stains. Generally, when the first gout of oil shoots out of the bottom of the car and down my arm while removing the oil plug, a smile creeps across my face, because I know the gods have blessed our car repair.

The second important ritual for any car repair is to be burnt. If you're tightening up that last bolt and haven't smelled seared flesh, then that car isn't going to last another hundred miles. Usually, I prefer to burn myself on the little metal holder for the light-on-a-string that illuminates all major car repairs. But really, any hot surface will do: manifold, exhaust pipe, oil filter, anything.

The third important ritual is for the person holding the light to blind the person doing the work. Even if it's a one-man repair job, the blinding ritual must be strictly observed. Otherwise, your transmission will fall out in the middle of I-5 rush hour traffic.

The fourth ritual is the giving of blood. This most common and popular way to give blood during car repairs is to let your hand slip while tightening something with a wrench. When you break the skin on your knuckles and that first trickle of precious, life-giving blood comes dribbling out, you can give a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for fully endorsing you car repair.

So, for now, with new alternator in place, and rituals properly executed, I can cruise to my heart's content. I can blaze a trail across our state, and no one can stop me. At least until the Anti-Christ or Volt Man conspire to deprive me of my dinosaur-powered freedom once again.

Copyright © 1994 by Robert T. Bakie