Manly Men doing Manly Things

While The Quad is many things, we aren't everything. I cannot deny the fact that we are strong, handsome, powerful, and potent... but we are NOT mechanics. This little trip down memory lane takes us all the way back to the turn of the millennium.

It was the summer of 2000 and it had been a few years since Gyuss had moved away. Dagromm and I had already begun our love affair with Q and the three of us were sitting around Ye Old Shop that Dagromm managed. This particular afternoon Dagromm was complaining about car trouble... a fairly common complaint for him in those days.

That day it was decided that an alternator for a 1995 Pontiac Grand Am should be easy to fix. So we later met at the Auto Zone, Dags purchased an alternator, and we struck out for the broken down vehicle. It was parked in a small town at a busy gas station of truckers and the like. Gyuss even called in to participate via cell phone. As we walked across the glistening asphalt in the scorching Texas heat you could have set our stride to the music of George Baker's Little Green Bag.

We arrived at the front of the Pontiac just as a wind whipped up and sent our flowing locks swirling across our face. I planted my foot on the front bumper, striking a pose, while Q thrust his fist down on the hood, popping it open. Dagromm, in turn brandished his wrench high over head as he slammed the new alternator down on top of the engine block. We were ready to commence with auto repair!

At first things rolled pretty damn well. We found the location of the old alternator in mere seconds and managed to unhook a belt that obstructed our access to it. It wasn't long before we removed the defunct part and replaced it with the new one. This was the home stretch and it looked as if we get out of there in under an hour. That's when we realized that we had no freaking clue how to put the belt back on. It had so much tension when attached that there was no way one could simply force it... but we tried. After another hour of massive grunting, muscle ache, and buckets of perspiration we were no closer to our objective.

Q took a frustrated step back, lifted his hands into the sky and cursed the gods of car-repair. Dagromm hung his head in shame as tears streamed down his face and I (in spite of my stoic appearance) feared all was lost. It was at this point that Gyuss' call conveniently dropped. Just then, in a moment of clarity my gaze landed upon a gangly trucker about to climb into his rig and leave the gas station for the open road. I quickly flagged down the salty highwayman and requested his assistance. This was our last chance of being able to say we achieved the impossible. He approached the car and pointed out what we already knew - that there was a tension rod underneath the manifold. It was the very thing we had been struggling to manipulate for the last hour. Little did we know, you needed to be a contortionist in order to do this successfully. Luckily this trucker had spent three years with The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He cranked down on the rod and we were back in business.

Victory at last! Q did a celebratory dance that he learned from a Native American witch doctor during his peyote phase, while Dagromm and I tested out the new alternator. As the engine turned over and hummed with glee, a chorus of angels began singing the opening to Carl Orff's Carmina Burana! It was truly a magical moment and we drove off into the sunset.