I advise my daughters on marrying well.

Tredessa and Stormie are going to kill me for this, but seriously – there is no room for another worship-leader/musician/ministry/missionary guy in the family!  What we really need is some one who can work on cars.

Of course, I am kidding.  Sort of.  But maybe not, really.  Because we are just not that great with cars or any sort of weird sound, smell, emission, transmission, filter, fuel pump, guage, heater core, thermostat, alternator or anything connected to any of those things having to do at all with cars or anything closely resembling a car.

So when Stormie and I  left for Target earlier today and were barely around the corner before we heard a hissing noise coming out of the vents, there was immediate alarm.  PsssssSssssSsssssssssst…

“What is that noise?”  Stormie asked with the appropriate concern, you know, because of our lack of car-luck.

I tried to play it down.  “Oh, it just sounds like the release of some pressure in the heating unit or something.”  Didn’t I sound like I actually knew something?

Stormie:  (adjusting the the heater, off, then on) No, I have never heard a sound like that.

Me: (leaning forward to adjust the vent opening and closing, playing it cool; sounds subsides mementarily) Oh, it just sounds like a release of pressure  – oh, there it went.  It is fine. (I settle back and suddenly the sound gets loud again)

Me: (inside truly believing some majorly important hose has come loose and is shooting in all directions under the hood and probably will be the demise of Stormie’s Corolla, but still needing to make it to Target!   Stormie is madly pushing buttons and being very concerned) Oh, hmmm…I don’t know what that is….

The sound is discovered.

Stormie: Wait-what is that smell?  Mom-you are stepping on my hair spray!

All I can say is I was wearing my Danskos, made for shopping like a maniac, and I didn’t feel a thing.

We now roll the windows down choking from the aerosal hairspray fumes which are about to overcome us.

We arrive at Target.

Stormie: Mom, you were sitting on my CD.

Me: You need to clean up your car. (I now discover I sound just like my Grandma Hallet used to sound when she was laughing like a banchee with her asthma-hiss.  This is no good).

Ok-so in this case, a mechanic was not needed.  But for the future…