Chapter 8, Love Story, parts 332 - 335

Richard Britell July 6, 2012

332. Her first owner was not the the one who used to measure out her oil with a coffee spoon, but whomever it was, she did not recollect because she did not develop consciousness until she was about five, and had changed owners twice already. What she knew of her childhood came from the comments of a fortune telling gypsy.

333. She had a serious illness when she was three and was hospitalized for many months, and spent several weeks dismantled and on a lift in a Paris garage.

334. Her first twenty years were rather uneventful; a series of owners at two or three year intervals. Hers was the usual story of a Paris car; five months with a hairdresser, then two years with a high school teacher. She had rather fond memories of seven years spent in the countryside at a vineyard where she only had to go into town once a week.

335. The defining event of her life happened only two years ago when she was eighteen, and was for sale at a used car lot in the 20th Arrondissement. She was purchased by an American college student who was studying Fashion Design at the Sorbonne.  

The 2CV On Strike, parts 328 - 331

Richard Britell July 5, 2012

328. I was standing there looking at this quart of oil, and thinking of its strange mute testimony of some unknown persons' love of their car when I heard the Duck saying, "What it boils down to is, you are a car abuser, no getting around it."

329. We put the old quart of oil into the engine; the oil came up to the bottom of the dipstick, and we drove off in search of the hospital. From that moment on, the old car began to insert her two cents into the conversation.

330. I could not hear what the 2cv was saying over the sound of the engine but the Duck, with his more sensitive hearing was able to. Perhaps because she had learned to talk by listening to the conversation of auto mechanics, her comments tended to be coarse and opinionated.

331. Old Buboni continued to rant on in his sick delirium and so we continued along hoping to find a sign that would lead us back to the main road. The Duck, with his ear cocked to the dashboard, made notes of what the car was saying; which turned out to be autobiographical material. Later he transcribed it for me. What follows is the Duck's account of some of the car's important history, complete with his observations. 

The 2CV On Strike, parts 324 - 327

Richard Britell July 4, 2012

324. I did not know what to think. I suspected the Duck was making it all up  to entertain himself at my expense, laughing at me because he could get me to believe for a few minutes that cars could express opinions and even go on strike and issue demands that had to be met.

325. "I see you do not believe me", the Duck said, "but listen. Nani told me that the last owner kept a log of all the maintenance in the glove compartment. She used to top up the oil with a coffee spoon. The  log has a big oil stain along the binding.

326. That oil stain is from oil leaking from an nearly full quart of oil left up under the engine bonnet  last year.  We can put that oil in the crankcase and get to the hospital with Buboni.

327. Sure enough, we opened the bonnet and up against the firewall we found an old quart of oil and taped to the side of it was a rag and a coffee spoon.  On the label in ball point pen was written a series of dates and corresponding amounts, it seemed that some time ago Nani used four coffee spoon fulls of oil each month.

The 2CV On Strike, parts 320 - 323

Richard Britell July 3, 2012

320. The Duck was out for a long while talking to the car and when he got back in it was not good news. "First of all" said the Duck, "You have owned Nanette for six months now and you have yet to check the oil.

321. "She just wants to say that she has never had an oil problem, but the screws to the valve cover were not tightened completely and oil has been oozing through the gasket ever since."

322. "She is on strike and will not go another inch unless her demands are met. She knows that Buboni may die as a result, but she says, 'One 2CV engine is worth more than ten washed up useless art historians.'"

323. She wants a complete service plus she wants to be vacuumed, and the tires have to be rotated, and this is just a start.

The 2CV On Strike, parts 316 - 319

Richard Britell July 2, 2012

316. I listened to what the Duck said about the car's having intelligence and consciousness, but I could not accept it.  I started to get sarcastic about it.

317. "Look Duck", I said, "where does this car consciousness and intelligence reside, is it in the distributor, or somewhere in the starter motor?  If you take the tires off do the tires talk Italian if they are Perellis."

318. "You stupid idiot" shouted the Duck in anger, "Where is your precious intelligence, is it in your fingers, if I cut off your leg do you get more dumb, does your knee cap speak English, and can I teach algebra to your toenails? No No No,  but your spleen knows more about blood chemistry that you could teach yourself in a lifetime."

319. "And if your spleen gets mad at you it will start to 'Knock' just like the 2CV is doing. Cars have consciousness because God gives it to them, just too bad for you that you don't know about it.  Now shut up while I go out and have a little chat with this car of yours."

The 2CV On Strike, parts 312 - 315

Richard Britell July 1, 2012

3312. "Human beings are all alike", said the Duck, "when it comes to not understanding that cars have feelings and consciousness." It is so obvious it is painful. Show me an old car anywhere that  does not know to the penny the  account balance of their owners checking account relative to the cost of repairs".

313. "Now I will grant you that new cars are very dumb at first,"  the Duck went on, "their consciousness usually begins to develop about the time you miss their first scheduled maintenance."

314." These old cars, like this 2CV, having been on the road for thirty years often know several languages, and are very sensitive and even clairvoyant. They will breakdown the instant they can sense an accident coming, but do they ever get any credit for it? Never!"

315. "Unfortunately, the average thirty year old car has experienced so much abuse and neglect and outright rejection they they are often filled with bitterness and intense unrepressed anger"

The 2CV On Strike, parts 308 - 311

Richard Britell June 30, 2012

308.  As I stood there in the road with the dipstick in my hand, I became aware of a terrible moral dilemma. Did not my behavior show that I was more concerned about some old car that about Buboni who sat there dying in the front seat?

309. Any self respecting human being would never stop a car to check the oil on an emergency trip to the hospital. What sort of a person was I  anyway. I shut the hood disgusted with myself, got back in the car and put the key in the ignition.

310. "Just what in the loony toons do you think you are doing", said the Duck out of the back seat, "If this old car started knocking at us, it has its reasons, let me have a little chat with him."

311. "Look Duck" I said, "I can accept that you are smarter than I am, and you have universal consciousness, but don't start telling me that cars can reason and have consciousness because I will not believe it."