Men, Women, Cars and Cardiac Arrest Part Deux: There is no 'I' in team, but there is an 'I' in Idiot

Here are the facts:

1) My wife has killed two vehicles in her day. Well, they weren't killed, they were just put into intensive care (really expensive intensive care) for a while. Both of these occurrences could have been prevented, but that is in the past.

However, sometimes the past comes back to haunt you.

2) I have walked my wife through the basics of car maintenance, from reading the gauges to opening the hood, just in case she had an emergency again. But mostly, to save us the kind of expenses that exceed the annual domestic product of a less well off country like, lets say, Germany.

3) We were dead broke when this happened.

4) As well educated as I am, I am always surprised at the fact I can be a complete idiot.

Because of this, the following transcripts of my feelings during a car emergency my wife had may seem a little harsh and a little mean, but you needed to be in my position to really get that crushing, heart attack waiting to happen feeling.

This is the email I sent to some folks to help me with my problem, although, it didn't cure me of my idiocy. The parentheses are my actual thoughts during our conversation on the phone. It's poorly written, but enlightening, none-the-less.

(Okay, I'm taking a deep breath.)
My wife calls from work today and says that smoke is coming out of the vents in the car. She reassures me she checks all the car's gauges, which has me worried already (she has killed a bronco engine and cracked a light truck's head, for background info)
I ask the vents on the inside?
She says, no, the vents on the outside. (we have a vent on the outside? No we don't!)
I ask her to pop the hood and see what the deal is.
She can't find the release latch in the car.
(another deep breath)
She finally finds it and now informs me that the smoke is still coming out, but she can't unlatch the hood in front.
(breathing has stopped now)
She tells me she knows where it is, but she still can't find it. ("THAT doesn't even make sense," Ron Burgundy)
(pain, sharp pain in brain, good Lord, is is really only 7:30 AM?)
She's found it!
But she can't get it to unlatch.
(why does everything look red?)
Dear Lord in high heaven, she's really trying to open it, but she says she can't seem to get the 'thingy' undone.
Or course I'm trying to be calm and cool on the other end of the line.
At this moment I remember that Yoda said there is no try, only do or not do.
I'm not doing well.

She says she'll get back to me if she can get someone to help her.
We hang up.
(Blood pressure, 250/180)
I now have 90 minutes of math class to think this over. Thinking bad. Thinking very bad.
(Blood pressure, 350/250)
I have a message on my phone! It says that the PE teacher got the hood open (magic, I ask?) and there is green stuff spattered across the engine.
I call back. No answer. (How can you not answer a cell phone?)
I have time to go to Walmart. Will buy pre-mixed anti-freeze, duct tape, and tequila. Scratch that. Make it a mocha frap. Must keep job.


Finally get hold of my wife.
Is there a leak in the radiator?
I don't know she replies.
Does the leak appear to be coming from on of the hoses?
I don't know.
Dear God, it isn't the head again?
I'm not sure.
(caffeine has brought blood pressure down, however brain still hurts. Beginning to wonder if an alcohol free week is actually possible at this point. Begin to visualize beers that are in the back of the fridge. Also beginning to visualize bank account getting smaller and smaller. Why can't I visualize Pamela Anderson? Dear God, why not?)

This story may be continued if I survive. However, I'm looking for theories as to what is wrong with the car.
1) Broken hose (good!)
2) Broken radiator (bad!)
3) Broken head (call AA for me now)
4) A combination of these (I hear meth is kindof cool)

SECOND EMAIL

There is no "I" in team.
However, there is an "I" in idiot.
In fact, as I write this I notice there are two "I's, but that is neither here nor there.
Now after I finally got to my wife's school, I opened the hood without any major problems, checked the engine, and sure enough, there were smatterings of green anti-freeze around the engine and on the underside of the hood.
The hood was stained right over and around the cap that says "do not open when hot."
I know what you're thinking, but the engine was cool. No people were scalded in the making of this fiasco.
However, no hoses were leaking. I checked every bleeping one.
I looked under the radiator for leaks. Nothing.
So I began to remove the cap and noticed something relatively important.
The cap was a little loose. The green environmental poison must have squirted out of the cap as she drove down the road.
I then began to pour close to a gallon of premixed anti-freeze and thanked the heavens for my fortune.
No engine overheated during this fiasco, which is a major good thing for the amount of anti-freeze which was lost.
However, I began to think, which we all agree, is never a good idea.
Who was the last person to open the cap to the radiator?
Has my wife ever opened the hood? Has Bush ever told the truth unless he was forced to? The answer to both these questions is the same.
Then I remembered a fun father-son bonding time as we gazed at the engine of the Subaru together, and I pointed out what things were as he asked. Then he asked me to open that cap so he could see what was in there.
It was the radiator cap.

I had taken it off and then put it back on.

I almost killed the car.

And there is an "I" in idiot.

As Pandora had her box, as the Mariner had his albatross, as Clinton had his Lewinski, as Bush has more things that can be listed here, I have my radiator cap dragging me down for all eternity.




The question is: If my wife doesn't know, does it matter?