How to start a car with a hairbrush

How to start a car with a hairbrush

I lived for twenty-two years in the stolen car capital of the world, Roslindale Massachusetts. I’m sure some people would take issue with me saying this, but when your family’s car is stolen not once, but twice, right out of your very own driveway, you become a little cynical. When you are the youngest of six siblings you learn a lot of things, the biggest lesson that I got from them was to never get your license. No one ever actually sat me down and gave me this bit of wisdom, I simply observed my brothers and sisters and came to the conclusion myself.

The person with the worst driving record in my family would have to be my
older sister Mary-Lou. It’s not that she’s a bad driver really; it’s just that trouble seems to seek her out, like flies on poop. I personally have been in accidents with her at the wheel at least four times. I’ve never asked her, but I’m willing to bet that her insurance premium is about a million dollars by now. Sometimes I think the source of her troubles is the cars she chooses to drive. She owned a series of boat sized behemoths in the eighties mostly because she is a musician, and when you’re gigging you need to haul a lot of equipment.

The worst of her cars was a long yellow station wagon with abnormally large wheel wells. We had taken a drive to Waltham to run an errand. When we pulled up I immediately noticed that the sidewalk was covered in tall scaffolding. After conducting our business we got in the car and proceeded to pull out of the curb. My sister was unaware that the wheel well of the wagon had locked itself around a pole and as she pulled out the entire row of scaffolding began to fall over. I leaped out of the car and tried to direct her. We thought perhaps if she backed up again the car would dislodge itself but it only became worse and the scaffolding began to fall the other way. I had to go back into the building and get some men to come out and push the car off of the pole. It was all quite embarrassing. I’m sure those guys, whoever they were, had a good laugh about women drivers that day. She later locked that very same wheel well onto a Buick and a Cadillac respectively, luckily their owners were understanding.

Another time we were sitting at a stop sign when a Ford Fiesta full of Arabs plowed straight into us. Ford Fiestas as you know are one of the smallest cars ever manufactured, from front to back I think they measure about five feet. The only car known to be smaller than this is the Mini. There had to be at least seven men in that vehicle, their vision was impaired by the collection of pom-poms, fuzzy dice and troll dolls filling the dashboard and windshield. It was difficult getting the Arabs insurance information because the accents were so thick.

My sister also owns a motorcycle; She is the only person I have ever heard of, who has actually driven her bike into the eye of a tornado. It hurled her into the air and threw her back down again; she walked away a bit bruised but a survivor.

My brother Eddie also has an interesting set of stories concerning vehicles. His very first car was a small ford pinto which he purchased from my before mentioned sister for two hundred and fifty dollars. He walked the two blocks to our sister’s house with the money in his pocket, and proudly left with the keys. I still haven’t figured out how, but the car was destroyed within those two blocks between Cornell Street and Coldberg Avenue. He collected the insurance money and bought something else. Years later he purchased a speed boat from my brother Tom for fifteen hundred dollars, unfortunately he didn’t attach it to the trailer properly so it slid off and was dragged along Hyde Park Avenue for several blocks. He didn’t notice what was happening until the hull was torn to shreds. So much for the speedboat he bought something bigger and is still an avid boater to this day. My mother used to say that Eddie was the only person she knew that could fall into a mud puddle and come up in a white suit.

My sister Chrissy’s first car was a Camaro. A combination of mismatched parts, brown primer and white dent filler made it the most colorful car I’d ever seen. That car seemed to break down every time we went out. When this would happen we would pull over to the side of the road and open the hood. I was instructed to sit behind the wheel and turn the starter but not until my sister had taken off the top of the carburetor and deftly inserted a hairbrush. Why this worked I don’t know, and how my sister knew about it is an even greater mystery. The car however, always seemed to start again. We spent many hours in that car, cruising around, getting lost and bonding tightly. I will always remember that car with fondness.

It’s no wonder with a history like this that I would be a bit afraid to get my license Who needs one anyway, I would say, when you live in a great city like Boston that has plenty of easy public transportation. Who needs to break down, have an accident or get locked onto scaffolding and get embarrassed when you can take a bus or train anywhere?

I was married at the age of twenty-two and my husband became my chauffeur. We had very little money for a honeymoon, so we booked a two- day get away package at the Gunstock inn in New Hampshire. Ironically the car broke down about a mile and a half from the inn and we had to take our bags out of the trunk and walk the rest of the way. This was greater proof, as far as I was concerned, that you should never get your license. It wasn’t until many years later, when I lived in a smaller town like Weymouth that I realized what I had been missing and so at thirty-four years of age, with the encouragement of my pastor and counselor, I got my learners permit. I’ve heard it said that you should never let your father or your husband teach you to drive, and I can say without hesitation that this is true. My husband and I had many fights during this time, resulting in us pulling over and switching places. I got my license a year later and consider myself to be a decent driver. I’ve only had one accident in the last six years. It was ruled the other drivers fault. I’m still terrible at parallel parking, but hopefully I’ll never have to use it.

My seventeen-year-old son recently got his permit and has been getting behind the wheel whenever he gets the chance. If there is one thing I would like him to know it’s that it’s best to conquer these things when you’re young and unafraid. I don’t wish to give him any driving lessons, I’ll leave that to the professionals, but if he ever wants to know how to start a car with a hairbrush I’d be glad to let him know.