The 2CV in Love PArT I
by Richard Britell
The first 18 years of the 2CV’s life were rather uneventful: a series of owners at two-or three-year intervals. Hers was the usual story of a Paris car, five months with a hairdresser, then two years with a high school teacher. She had rather fond memories of seven years spent in the countryside at a vineyard where she only had to go into town once a week. The defining event of her life happened only two years ago when she was 18, and was for sale at a used car lot in the 20th Arrondissement. “nani” was purchased by an American college student who was studying Fashion Design at the Sorbonne. From that day her life was completely transformed. She had a garage to herself for the first time in her life, and the American student was completely infatuated with her. The owner, Sarah Meyers, felt that the car was as French as it was possible to be, and being a Francophile, she loved the vehicle to distraction. If Sarah met anyone, the first thing they were subjected to was a ride in the countryside in her old 2CV, and on these rides nani heard herself described in the most glowing and adoring terms. Sarah would even pick up hitchhikers on the road to share with them her purely American love for the car,
20 • March 2013 THE ArTFuL MInD
a love not easily understood by the French, for whom the car is not a curiosity. Sarah decided to do all the routine maintenance to nani herself, and as a start she purchased the repair manual and read it from cover to cover. Sarah was not too mechanical, but she tried to picture to herself removing the transmission and taking it apart. First of all the oil had to be changed, and after that she would learn about a tune up, and how it is done. She read the passage about changing the oil and discovered there was also an oil filter to be removed and replaced. The directions were not clear to her however, and it took long time trying to find the filter in the engine compartment. One Saturday morning, Ms. Myers put on some overalls, opened the bonnet of her 2CV, and attempted to remove the oil filter. never having worked on a car in her life she made three mistakes: first, she did not remove the drain plug at the bottom of the engine; second she tried to remove it by hand; and third, she did not wait for the engine to cool off. This was not a disaster however. She removed her hands from the filter the very instant she felt its heat. She shut the bonnet, went into her apartment, and put Vaseline on her fingertips. The tragic thing about this little event was that nani saw it coming. She understood that her new owner was going to do the service herself and she was moved to the depths of her transmission gears with anticipation. She had dreamed of what it would be like and now, instead of the sublime experience she was anticipating, she had injured her owner instead. She was devastated. On the following Saturday nani was delighted to find that Sarah returned to her garage for another attempt at her maintenance. The oil change was put off at first and instead a much simpler operation was attempted, the cleaning of the battery terminals. This also resulted in instant failure because as she unscrewed the bolt holding the clamp of the battery cable, she accidentally let the wrench touch both polls of the battery. The wrench produced a huge spark and flew out of her hands onto the garage floor. This, like burning her fingers on the oil filter, was completely unanticipated, but nani saw it coming also and now considered the situation hopeless. But Sarah overcame her fears, completed the cleaning of the battery, and by the end of her Saturday session with her car had changed the oil and the filter according to more detailed instructions obtained from the boy at the service station
where she bought gasoline. According to her manual the thing she had to do next was a mystery to her. She had to check the level of oil in the transmission. There were no details given in her manual and she couldn’t figure out how to go about it. not knowing what to do she drove down to the service station and, accosting the manager’s son asked, “Can you show me what part of my car is the transmission and can you tell me how its oil level gets checked?” The mechanic pointed out the transmission to her and wiped the dirt from the filler screw. He said, “unscrew this and put your finger in there, the oil should be just below the opening.” Sarah ignored the very suggestive leer the boy gave her as he explained this very mechanical operation to her but nani, who was listening to all this, did not. The suggestive looks of the auto mechanic produced in nani her first experience of jealous rage, and as a result Sarah had great difficulty in getting her started later that morning. These feelings of jealousy were new to the 2CV, and were to persist and cause problems in the future. What was going on, is that our 2CV, back just two years ago, was falling in love with her owner. This is not an unheard of occurrence, although it is rare. The 2CV was simply responding in kind to the affection her owner was showing her. This business of constantly checking the oil and looking to see if the transmission oil is topped up has a sexual aspect to it and there was no way that this sort of constant automotive petting could not have led to serious sexual responses in the 2CV, and so, at the end of a few months of this treatment nani was a car hopelessly and passionately in love with her owner. And you have to keep in mind that this passionate involvement was taking place in Paris, a city that exacerbates and inflames passionate feelings. There were late night drives, picnics in the countryside, and cool evenings driving down the Champs-Elysees with the canvas top rolled back. ... ( Part II next month )
From: “No Cure For The Medieval Mind”, by Richard Britell nocureforthemedievalmind.blogspot.com