The Jeep Stories

A guy who used to work for me returned to work here a few weeks ago. He ahd left over 10 years previously. We were talking and I casually asked him where his Jeep was since I noticed he was driving something different. (He had saved up and paid cash for the Jeep way back when.)

He started laughing and told me story after story about his Jeep. One was how one day he was driving down the highway and he started smelling something bad. Then suddenly he was in a cloud of white smoke. The engine was on fire. He said, "I remember thinking 'That's not good'". Mr. Understatement. He was in a busy area so he had to hurry to an exit to find somewhere to pull off. By the time he got to an exit he said the paint on the hood of the Jeep was bubbling. So he got into a parking lot and got the hood opened and flames were everywhere. He then started looking for his fire extinguisher and realized he had taken it out for recharging recently. (He is a pilot so he always carries stuff like that in his vehicle.)

Now he's standing there watching his enging burn so he turns and sees a guy going into a business and goes to ask him for a fire extinguisher. The guy asks why and he just points to the Jeep. The guy yells "Oh shit!" and runs inside to find one. But he takes too long so my friend looks around inside the Jeep some more and finally he finds a Coke. So he proceeds to dump Coke all over the engine. Somehow that works and the flames go out.

He had it towed to his garage where he repladed all the melted hoses and belts, started it up and drove it away. Just like that. Apparently the hose to the master cylinder had burst and sprayed fluid over the engine, starting the fire.

Another story he told me was how one night he was following his girlfriend home when a storm came up suddenly. He didn't have the top on the Jeep so driving at night in a storm with no top was difficult. So at some point he passes a truck going the other direction and it splashes a huge pile of water onto him as it goes by. He gets even more soaked but the worst part was the weight of the water hitting the windshield broke the wipers. They wouldn't run. So there he is, pitch black outside, raining very hard, no top and no wipers, glasses soaked and fogging up trying to follow his girlfriend home.

Now the girlfriend gets disoriented and drives off the road over a curb. naturally he can't see what's happening so he syas suddenly the Jepp hits something and he bounces way up in the air. Then he sees his girlfriend stopped in front of him so he hits the brakes and starts sliding in a circle. They had missed a turn and were now in the median of a dual roadway somewhere. He had just bounced over one of those concrete drainage things you see in the miccle of those highways. Luckily the girlfriend had missed it or her car would have been toast.

But they got back on the road and finally made it home. It took days for the Jeep and for him to dry out, he said.

He told me other stories that had me laughing so hard. You have to hear how he tells them to appreciate it. But then, after all the horror stories, he says he really misses the Jeep. He said it was the best vehicle he's ever owned. I asked if maybe all the adventures made him think that way about it. He said maybe but he wished he had never sold it.

Funny how we get attached to things. For whatever reason. I've been there so I understand.