having your car burst into flames
on the way to work- or ANYWHERE, for that matter, has to be the blue-fairy godmother of bad days. So when I saw the gentleman standing on the side of the road this morning, my heart immediately went out to him. I could imagine the phone conversation.
“Hey, yeah, I’m gonna be late. No, my car is on fire. No, I’m not in it. The fire department is putting it out now. What? no, I won’t be able to drive it. I’ll be there when I can.”
Driving by him, I said a prayer that his day improved, somehow, though it was hard to imagine anything worse that could happen, it is not impossible.
And then I saw the car.
I mean, really, he should have known. It said right there, on the side.
“Blazer”
14 comments Og | Uncategorized
My beat up old jeep had rich black smoke start pouring out of the electronics box mounted between the visors.
I pulled over, shut it off, ripped the cover off, slashed through the wire bundle and managed to keep the headliner from catching fire.
After the smoke clear I noticed about $0.45 worth of pennies had been stuffed up there and one of them had eventually found their way into the circuit board.
I guess the previous owner had left some bored kids in the car at some point.
Years back, my son put a penny in the cigarette lighter socket of my motorcycle hauling van. Much smoke, much howling! Wife emptied a dry powder fire extinguisher on the inside of the van. What a mess. Good thing I wasn’t there. That socket never worked again fortunately.
I once had a rod blow through the side of the block, piercing the exhaust pipe just below the manifold, spraying burning oil through the entire engine compartment. Fun.
At least it wasn’t an Exploder!
And here I thought I would hear how you offered the poor guy a ride. I would give any ford driver a ride should I find them in that situation. Hell, I might even pick up one those ram drivers.
Good thing it wasn’t a Nova – it would have taken everyone out.
I always wondered why a “Blazer” was a GM and not a Ford product, given FoMoCo’s propensity to build cars prone to catching fire, either with or without external help.
“Blazer.” Heh.
I know how the guy felt. Had an Astro van burn up on me back in the early 90’s.
Good of ya to put a word in upstairs for the ol’ boy.
I woulda picked him up like paul suggested, but this was early in the burn, he’d have had a lot of stuff to deal with before he was ready for a lift.
Okay, now I’ve heard about two cars bursting into flames. They had a wreck in Chicago last night. Unfortunately the passengers were not as lucky as your guy.
Good on you, Og.
Yestiddy, in Portland, some chick drives a beater minivan into the drive-through of a McDonald’s, makes her order, and while she’s waiting for it, her car erupts in flames (fuel-pump fed gasoline fire, and she was too dumb to shut off the engine or drive it out into the parking lot).
Burned the Arches to the ground. Fire Dept saved the antique Twin Arches sign in the parking lot…
When you lift the hood to attack the flames with a chemical extinguisher it’s hot and you just dump on it crazy full-auto. I got lucky and killed it.
Afterward there’s a telltale yellow u-ish shaped silhouette mark on the greasy ground that doesn’t go away for a couple years. If you come across another one, the event-sign will be instantly recognizable.