Alas, You Can’t Judge a Man by His Genes

Ihave always believed I was a liberated woman.

Even though I was a child during the ‘70s, I know all about the Equal Rights Amendment and Gloria Steinem. I was raised to be self-sufficient.

My mother often told me, “No one can take any better care of you than you can.” She sent me to an all-girls high school where the atmosphere crackled with women’s empowerment and the mantra was, I know as much as any male does and anything he can do I can do better.

All of that went out the window when my car broke down.

As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve always thought of cars and car repair as, well, a guy thing. So when my car recently needed a repair, lingering in my mind was the belief that it was my job as a woman to buy the car, to drive the car and to look good in the car--not to fix the car.

Granted, I didn’t need anything sophisticated like an engine overhaul. I just needed to change my battery.

But that meant lifting the hood and for sure there was a chance I might get dirty.

So when a male friend offered to put in a new battery for me, I thought my prayers had been answered. I ignored the fact that this was a man who has been through two cars in the past year. I forgot that my car had broken down as I pulled away from dropping him off at a garage where his car was being repaired.

All of that didn’t matter because he was a man and therefore genetically capable of fixing a car. Besides, he was offering to install the battery for the low, low price of free.

We started off well. He even had a wrench in his car, which told me he was no novice when it came to battery replacement.

“Are you sure you can do this?” I asked him nervously as he unscrewed nuts and removed wires while disconnecting my dead battery.

“Nothing to it,” he said. “Just pop one out and pop the other in.”

On the way to the store to buy a new Die-Hard he explained to me that the little red and green rings on the battery keep the moisture out. Wow, I thought, this guy really knows his batteries.

We left the store with the new battery. I imagined us to be Renaissance mechanics. Who needed high-tech computers and equipment. We had the wrench, we had the battery and we had the will.

Looking back on it now, I think I began to realize things were going wrong when we couldn’t get the plugs to fit on the terminals.

“Hmm,” he said. “This really should just slip on.”

Even though my mind said, “Quick, call a real mechanic,” I decided to give him time to figure out the problem.

Just then I remembered the male credo: When dealing with repairs, if something doesn’t fit you must make it fit. I watched as he banged on the plugs with his wrench to get them to fit on the terminals.

Suddenly there was a pop and I saw a brief flash from the battery. I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think that was supposed to happen.

“It is done,” he pronounced. “Start her up.”

Thirty minutes later, I was on the phone with a tow truck company. The next day, a mechanic explained to me that it is a bad thing to hook your battery up backward. A very bad thing.

“Ms. Respers, there are these things called negative and positive terminals,” he explained slowly. “You have to hook it up negative to negative and positive to positive, not vice versa.”

Oh.

Several hundred dollars in repairs later, I cannot put all the blame on my friend. I’ve learned my lessons about buying into stereotypes and trying to save a few bucks.

That’s why I contacted friends for reliable mechanic referrals. I hope I won’t need to have my car hauled in again any time soon but if I do I plan on going to someone who comes highly recommended.

Maybe she will even offer a free wash with every oil change.