Trouble With the Ignition

Late for my class, forgetting my journal, running back to let the dog in before I left, I hurriedly turned the electronic key for Molly, my Mercedes. Nothing. The key won’t budge. Frustrated, I try again. Nothing. I pull the key out, jerk the wheel to the left, then back to the right, and try again. No luck. I notice that the odometer is reading six blank spaces. I frown. I try again. Nada. I snap open my cell phone and call Tony Santos, the owner of the car repair shop three blocks away that I’ve used for the past 21 years since I’ve lived in my house. Within minutes, Tony was sitting in my car, trying to start the car. Fortunately, the car acted exactly for him as she acted for me.

“I don’t know what to say, Elizabeth. I’ll have to take it to the Mercedes dealership and have them check it out.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the car started right up, purring like the kitten she usually is. Tony switched off the car and tried again. Molly started right up. He tried a couple more times without problem and suggested to me that I leave the key in the ignition and bring it in if Molly gave me any more trouble. I finished some last minute chores, went out to start the car and….nothing. The key wouldn’t budge. Finally, after shoving it in with the same vengeance I observed with Tony, she started up and I drove her straight to the repair shop.

A few days later, the phone rang.

“Hello, Beautiful Betty.”

“Tony, you are such a flirt.”

“Is it really flirting if it is the truth? You are … you are one of the most beautiful women in Wyoming.”

I laugh out loud. He was so obviously struggling to find an expanse of believable size and our little town in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati would have to do.

“Your car has behaved beautifully for the mechanics at the Mercedes dealership. I can leave her there a few more days, or I can go pick her up.”

“Tony, I’m getting biceps from driving this truck with manual steering.”

Laughing, he agreed to pick up the car that afternoon and bring her to his shop. I could pick her up after work.

A few hours later, he called again.

“Have you been having trouble with acceleration, Beautiful Betty?”

I rolled my eyes into the phone and chuckled to myself. “Yes, actually I have, ever since the last major tune-up a few weeks ago.”

“Well, I’d like to keep it for a few more days. I think I know what’s wrong with it.”

Three days pass. My cell phone rings and I can see that it is Tony. “Tell me you like me.”

“Whaaat?” I stammered into the phone.

Tony sighed. “I just need you to tell me you like me.”

“Why Tony, I love you. You know that. I wouldn’t keep bringing my car to you for the past two decades if I didn’t.”

“Well, I was calling to tell you that your car is ready, but I went out to test it one more time and …. I couldn’t turn the key. I’m sending it back over to the dealership. It needs a new ignition.”

I groaned. “Oh, no….Tony, how much does a new ignition cost?”

“Around $600” he replied regretfully.

And I wouldn’t get my car back for another three or four days. I was driving my garden truck, the 1992 Chevy S-10 that didn’t have a radio, was manual transmission, manual breaks, manual steering. I had to wrestle the steering wheel with every left turn, and it took every ounce of strength I had to turn it around out of a parking space. After two weeks without Molly, though, I was starting to get the hang of it.

The next day, after an exhilarating and exhausting workout, I trudged to the truck, anxious to get home because, as usual, I was pressed for time and had a meeting in just a few hours. I climbed into the truck and turned the key, or at least, I tried to turn the key. It wouldn’t budge. I pulled out the key, jerked the wheel to the left and back again to the right, flicked my wrist and still…nothing. I sighed in frustration, repeated my maneuver again, and again. My cell phone rang. It was Tony.

“Good morning Beautiful Betty. We have your car ready to be picked up, all fixed.”

“Tony!” I breathed in a rush into the phone.

“What’s wrong, Betty?”

“ I can’t turn the key in the ignition of the truck!” I wailed into the phone.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the gym, the Wyoming Recreation Center, right up the Pike.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Within five minutes, Tony cruised Molly Mercedes to my side, jumped out, handed me the keys, and climbed into the truck. He struggled with the ignition, repeated the same steps I had taken moments earlier. After a few vigorous attempts, he got the key to turn, but turned wryly to me.

“You need a new starter, a new ignition.”

“What’s up with me and ignitions! I’ve never had to replace an ignition before, in all the clunker cars I’ve owned in the past. Now, I’m needing to replace two within a week!”

Tony looked intently at me. “I don’t know about the ignition problem, Miss Betty, but I am sitting here wondering what you’d do without me.”

He grinned.

I laughed. “You are so right, Tony. Thank you for rescuing me, yet again.” I grinned right back at him.

It was all such playful fun. I replayed the scene in my mind as I enjoyed a smooth, Mercedes drive into work later that morning. Tony flirts outrageously with me…and every other one of his female customers. Although he is single, he has never asked me out, and it’s unlikely that he ever would. I do have problems with ignition, and I’m not just talking about my motor vehicles.

I sat at my computer after my noon board meeting, composing an email to my latest suitor, a man with whom I had had a date for the previous three Saturdays in a row. It wasn’t working for me, and I needed to let him know. I hadn’t had the heart to return his phone call from yesterday, and when he had called again this morning, I knew what I had to do.

He wrote me back, graciously accepting my rejection, reiterating his admiration of me, wishing me well in finding what I was looking for. I have written, and received so many of these letters. So many, many, many problems with ignition. Sometimes the key turns and the engine rumbles alive, only to stall after the second date, or the third date, or as in this case, the fourth date. Often the key never turns at all. Usually there is no discernable reason for the thermodynamic failure, simply a loss of momentum in matters of the heart.

When I am the one who writes the gracious letter accepting rejection, I agonize over the fatal flaw at fault for stalling the engine of love in my suitor. I scour my emails and memories of phone conversations and most recent dates for reasons for the engine failure. I usually come up emptyhanded, assuming rightly or not, that it most likely had something to do with either my tenacious nature and open heart or my big butt, which is becoming less and less of an scapegoat option with each passing day.

Perhaps it is simply a failure of the ignition system, as just happened with both of my cars. Perhaps I worry too much, and should simply accept that sometimes, sparks just don’t ignite the way you hope they will, regardless of the author of the gracious rejection acceptance letter.

Winter approaches. I have put away my leather sandals, buffed and polished my clunky winter shoes, and brushed off my woolen coat. Thanksgiving looms in a few days, and my kitchen nears completion. I will post pictures when it is done. Gift giving season crouches around the corner. I am approaching the season with a brave smile, as I always do, as I always will. I know, in my heart, that it is only a matter of time, a matter of luck. Perhaps it is also a matter of willing the crackling static electricity of sweaters coming out of the dryer into a bed of ready kindling to get that ignition started, and sparked into a blazing flame.

Oh, how I would welcome its warmth.