Sometimes I’m very much a geek — but not always.   I mean, most days I am content to twine my fingers around bundles of wires and peer deep within the souls of servers, let code flicker past my knowing eyes in a complex dance of purpose, and find myself with a half chubby from hearing hard drives spin up.    I cannot and will not deny that spirit of being “one with the Matrix” on a daily basis.   But there are occasions, like today, when I prefer to don another hat and assume a different nature.   Today I communed with my cars.

Out of all the current aspects of my life, my current vehicular situation is one that I’m rather satisfied with at the moment.    Two cars, both new and running well, well within their respective warranties, reliable, and not without their elements of fun, subtle though it be sometimes.    They are not racecars, ricers, boytoys, or eccentric vehicles; as a family man, I don’t have the time nor the resources to be both practical and flamboyant, but they get me elements of both the stolid family man responsibility and the occasional grab-the-Jesus-bar experience.

They were also both horrifically in need of an oil change.

We’ve been waffling between the frozen, rockhard, 10-degree nights with ice and some snow to the “OMG, is spring here?” semi-warmth that only March can tease with and make us with we lived in California year-round.    As a result, this weekend’s bone-soothing warmths –  by no means hot; good god, not yet, dontcha know? — has rendered the ground into a combination of squidgy, sticky, sloppy mud sitting ontop of slabs of still-permafrost underlayment.    This thaws during the day enough to let your car dig ruts the size of the Grand Canyon in your driveway and then promptly freezes back into unflappable cement in the evening, causing your car to “pop” out of its parking spot when backing out in the morning.    It’s lovely, and if I have to put myself on the ground to change the oil?   EVEN BETTER.

And yet it was my best shot, the Galant being 8100 miles since it had last been changed and the Aveo about 5300; thank goodness for the quality of fully synthetic Mobil 1 oil which some folks run up to the mind-boggling count of 10,000 miles or more before giving it a switch.   If I had used dino excretion to lubricate my engines, I’m sure it would have rolled over and waggled its legs in the air long before now.

So, after digging out out the jack, the jackstands, the socket set (17mm for both cars, nicely enough), one oily cloth, one clean cloth, both jugs of new oil, both new oil filters, the oil catch pan, and a 4×8 sheet of glassboard to lay on, I started doing the mechanic thing on the cars.    Suffice it to say that the liquid dumping out of the bottom of each was no longer oil, it was FECES.    If it could have laid turds, it would have.    I can only imagine what was going through their electronic brains for the past week or two — “So….sluggy….tastes….like….burning!”    They ought to practically jump for joy now (and hopefully be a bit nicer on the gas mileage, too.)

After doing both and cleaning up, I decided to continue with my daily driver, the Aveo.    Gassed it up, dumped all the metric shitloads of crap from the passenger floor side, put away all the unnecessary items on the back seat, filled up the washer fluid, and took it down to the combination laundramat, car wash, and storage center and paid $1 for 10 minutes of Super-Suk Vacuum Madness.    Some Armor-All applied to the dusty dash, steering wheel, shifter, and brake; some glass cleaner applied to the extremely filthy windshield; and just because I’m a wannabe pimp daddy, tire shine on the pathetic 15″ tires with the shitty-looking plastic hubcaps.    No, Calvin is not pissing on something on my rear window, nor do I have nuts hanging from the rear of my car, but I have super-shiny tires.    You’re impressed, I can tell.

I love getting underneath my cars; checking out all the technology and how it works together has always been my passion, whether on computers or on women  (and I’ve seen a few undercarriages in my day, thankyouverymuch).   There’s something both serene and terrifying at looking at the components that, every day, help me fly down the road at speeds that make the Amish blush and shuffle uncomfortably in their buggies, yet still managing to deliver me in one piece and relatively happy at the other end of the trip.    I think if folks who are ignorant of how vehicles are constructed actually saw how very little holds it all together, they’d be a bit more nervous about doing some of the driving that they do.    It truly is amazing.

As I put everything away tonight and then washed my hands slowly under the warm, bubbly water, I reflected that it felt good to get a bit dirty, dig my fingers into something other than a software project, and I had really accomplished something.    That, in my opinion, is a good day with my cars.