Just give me a push

I am often amused by the males of our species and today I witnessed something that ranks pretty high on the usual scale.  I was walking back to my desk from the kitchen, minding my own business, when I walked past a window and became engrossed in the drama unfolding in our parking lot.  Exterior scene, nearly empty parking lot at mid-day.  A scruffy-looking man in his mid 20’s and his car, a Honda hatchback that has seen better decades, is visible through the window.  It appears that he is having car trouble.  Enter the curious employee.

‘Scruffy’ had the door on his car open and was pushing the disabled vehicle across the parking lot.  The end destination was apparently the very busy street right in front of the building.  He pushed the car into the street, jumped in the driver’s side seat and attempted to start the car.  When nothing happened Scruffy seemed more concerned that the engine still wouldn’t turn over instead of the amount of traffic whizzing by mere inches from his bumper.  After wildly gesturing his frustration at the willfulness his car was demonstrating for one and all, Scruffy got out to push the car back into the parking lot.  It was at this time a male coworker noticed the disabled vehicle and rushed over the help push the car back into the parking lot.  After a few moments of discussion, Scruffy and his new apprentice pushed the car across the parking lot and back into the street.

It was about this time that it occurred to me that Scruffy was trying to push-start his car.  This method works with a dead battery as long as the alternator is still functioning.  Typically this method is found to be very successful when one is parked on a hill, but not on a flat expanse of asphalt otherwise known as a parking lot.  I honestly don’t think that two guys are going to get up enough speed to jump-start a car in a parking lot; there is a lot to be said for not giving up, am I right?  The technical term for that something is called ‘pigheadedness’.

Scruffy and my coworker were in the process of pushing the obstinate automobile back into the parking lot, when a third individual from the mechanic’s garage across the street decided this all looked like fun and that he wanted to play too.  There was a brief pow-wow between the three guys, after which Scruffy got in the car while the other two guys pushed the car towards the street.  Are you sensing a pattern yet?  This time the car jerked a few times before coming to a rest as it had before.  They all pushed the car back into the parking lot and afterwards garage guy left while my coworker walked back towards his own car.  Scruffy opened the door and pushed his car towards the street, however in actuality he was getting it out of the way should someone come into the lot in the meantime.  As I turned away from the window, my coworker was pulling up in his adorable Mini Cooper while Scruffy dug his jumper cables out of his hatchback.

Good call guys, but it took you long enough.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein

Ciao