Let's Rethink That...

I have a tendency to over-complicate things. I'm pretty sure it's genetic.

It's not like I try, of course. Usually the first solution I see to a given problem is elegant, and takes into account most, if not all possible contingencies. And that's the problem. My initial stab at a resolution tends to be overly contingified, and bogs down disastrously in implementation.

Having learned from this, I do try to set aside the first response thought, and try to find the easy way. I was better at this in my youth. The mind clutters with experience.

By the same token, I don't know why I'm what They call "mechanically inclined." I don't exactly come by it honestly; I've watched Dad plan brilliant household projects only to have them fail in a titanic series of compounding disasters - usually culminating in more damage than the original project would have repaired.

Different sort of disaster, but disaster nonetheless.

I suspect my inclination can be sourced to the bicycle my grandparents gave me for my seventh birthday. It disappeared within a month; right after we moved to the town I would grow up in. Welcome to the sticks.

I spent the rest of my youth putting bikes together out of spare parts, and maintaining them myself. If I couldn't fix it, I was walking. As it happens, I've never owned a new bicycle to this day. But as usual, I digress.

Late in the summer one year, just after I'd first started the Learning To Drive process, Dad packed me and my brother into his Pontiac Catalina, and we headed west across B.C. to take my brother back to school. We were loaded down with art supplies, his gear, a tent trailer and everything else 3 guys need for a 700 km trip.

The tent trailer was merely for storage. We were going to be staying at Uncle Bug's in Burnaby, or Surrey, or whereverthehell he lived.

In a little town called Princeton on Highway 3, the car lost power. Completely. All it would do was idle.

And off the highway we pulled. A short inspection under the hood, and dad determined that the accelerator cable had broken.

Yes, you read that right. Perhaps one day I'll discuss how things that are never supposed to happen, happen a matter of routine. It's kinda like operating in an infinite improbability field like Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic - without the whole instant total existence failure part.

The next few hours produced an absolute flurry of activity from Dad - whilst my brother and I sat in the car, windows down, he reading in the back and I... well... honestly I don't remember what I did. It can't have been much, and obviously it was a mindnumbing couple hours.

Dad shows up with several bags and a harried look. He starts telling us about his last several hours on the phone, dumping the contents of the bags on the driver's seat of the Catalina.

"Turns out these things never break. I had one mechanic phone all over the country and he found one in Canada ~ in Quebec City, but if they ship it it'll take a week. So I called Uncle Bug and he's gonna make some calls so I need to phone him back in a few..."

I had by then perused the contents of the bags. Brass wire, one large C clamp, a couple smaller c clamps, some assorted nuts and bolts, electrical tape, and a microscopic crescent wrench that looked like it should be on a keychain. "Dad."

"... huh?" turns out I'd cut him off in mid-frustrated-prattle.

"What's all this for," I asked with my newly-minted "calm" voice. I knew that it was probably going to be interesting.

Not good - but interesting.

"Well, I went to the hardware store. I figured maybe we could rig up a hand-throttle."

Admittedly, my first thought was that the brass wire was too soft, and lacked the tensile strength to...

My second thought caused my Calm Voice to request a short leave of absence. I declined that request, politely, if perhaps firmly. "Okay, you want to drive the Hope-Princeton Highway one-handed while the other one controls your speed. And then try to do this in Vancouver in rush hour. Pulling a trailer."

He looked at me for a second. The funny thing is, when your Dad looks at you like that for a second, it's the longest second in recorded history. You kinda get a little chilled in the pit of your guts, wondering which way it's gonna go. It wasn't my first time. We had an unusual relationship, my Dad and me. Occasionally, I was his senate - his House of Sober Second Thought.

Like I said. The mind, evidently, clutters with experience.

"Yeah," he said, finally, looking over the hardware again. "I guess I'd have to relearn how to drive, wouldn't I." He looked a little rueful about having bought it all for nothing. But he hadn't. I had just then figured it out.

"Do you have any Picture Hanging wire in your stuff," I asked my brother - who was still sitting in the back seat, trying to will himself safely to his apartment in Vancouver... or really anywhere else.

You might think that's a mildly unusual request, asking for something so unlikely in a situation that... odd. It was the first time I had attempted to use my personal Improbability Field to my advantage. He reached into a bag and handed over a roll of thin, braided wire. "Of course," he said.

I did say Art Supplies.

"Perfect. Dad, you wanna find out how Uncle Bug is doing? I'm gonna use this, and these clamps and stuff and re-run the cable. Right through the old cable housing. I've restrung gears and brake lines enough, I should have thought of it. Great Idea!" I said to his back as he headed off with a strange little half-smile.

And I did. Took a little tape, patience and blood like everything else I've since done with cars; but I managed to restring the pedal so we could drive normally to Uncle Bug's.

Well, Almost normally. Never occurred to me to have the pedal blocked "up" when I connected it, so all we could do was 95 kmh - but the speed limit was 90, so no worries there. It broke the next morning the second I started the car to pull it in to Uncle Bug's driveway to be fixed properly. Right where I'd clamped it to the throttle. Figures.

Uncle Bug was a helicopter mechanic by trade, and liked to restore cars. He had made a few phone calls and had a new cable in his hands in about 90 minutes.

I suspect that gene is a recessive.