For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 24, 2013

And THIS is reason No. 478961 why I don’t drive — it’s too complicated!

I like my Prius. Hit the power button and hmmmmmm, she starts.

At this point I would say, “never mind, I’ll put gas in my own car, thank you.”

Never let the gas get that low especially the ethanol crap we are overpaying for. Not all of us can afford to buy and maintain a Prius or a Volt.

“Mine’s out of gas.” Gee, you couldn’t have stopped at the gas station and put more in? I always wonder this about my wife.

“Hold the clutch halfway in” is never good advice, unless you’re in the business of repairing clutches.

Broken return spring on clutch pedal? That would keep you busy on the highway.

Hey, if she’s too lazy to put gas in her car then she should have to walk to the store. It’s called responsibility. I don’t drive my wife’s car and she doesn’t drive mine. This must be a good system as we have been married for 36 years.

I think she’d be better off getting him to siphon some of his car’s gas into her car — and he’d be better off doing it — if he wants his car back later.

I had a ’67 Chevy Impala (with headers) – and I had to go thru similar hijinks to get it to start. Either that or get a guy – all he had to do was turn the key in the ignition!

I learned to drive standard and wouldn’t want to go back to that. There was also something called choke, and the danger of flooding the motor.

You had better not let a new car run out of gas. If a car with EFI runs out of gas you can run the battery dead or burn up a starter trying to restart it. All the air has to be purged out of the line just like on a diesel engine before it will start. I have seen it happen more that once.

If you’re having to go through all of that just to start a car it means that the car is getting too old to run, or it needs a serious tune up!

Her’s must be one of those fancy “easy start” models.

i’m not a driver, however, in a standard isn’t all the gear stuff in between the two seats? Wouldn’t Ellie have had trouble just “shoving over” to the passenger seat?? hmmmm, just wondered lol

She has the good car leaving his with the junker, runs the new out of gas, wants to borrow his, she deserves what she got.

It would be easier to just put gas in your own car, Ellie

That’s one of the reasons I hate driving my husband’s truck! Every time I get back he asks if I started it this way and that way and did this with the gas pedal and I’m always like “Uh, noo….” And he says what I did was really bad for his truck. So glad my car isn’t complicated.

When I was low on money, I’d wait until the last minute to fill the gas tank. Now, I fill it once a week, usually when it’s 1/2 empty (or 1/2 full depending on how you look at it ;-)). My husband on the other hand waits until the low gas light is on.

that’s how it is. The wife gets the good car & the guy gets the klunker. And they Still complain!

Keep your Prius & Volt. I’ll stick with my big V8 Mustang; Thank you!

This is one of the reasons why my husband always keeps a 5-gallon can of gas in the garage. Mostly it’s to fill the lawn mowers and the weed-eater when they need it . . . but he’s also used it for the cars too. Not because they were out of gas (we never let them get that low before putting more in), but to make them go just a little bit longer until the newest surge in gasoline prices (hopefully!) goes back down again before we finally do need to refill the tanks.

That’s easy for HIM to say!

“Standard” is no longer the standard as it once was. The more correct term today would be manual transmission. The automatic trans has long since taken over at the “standard” transmission. I do agree with Lynn however, in that I also feel that knowing how to drive a manual transmission makes you a better driver over all. All my kids learned to drive on manual transmissions and my wife has a 5 speed manual in her Volvo wagon.

probably meant to say choke not clutch

Ellie must havea automatic transmission. Reminds me of my neighbor who ran out of gas and called me to pick her up. What it was is a senario to hit me up for money. I did not fall for it and drove her to gas station so she can full her can with gas and returned her to her car.

See its so simple.

Back before I retired, when I was low on gas I’d pull in the garage and leave a sign I made that said " feed me!" for my husband. When he came home he’d see the sign,get in my car and go fill it up. I always had the more sportier car ,so he liked driving it anyway. Miss him. Now I have to pump gas.

Wish I had learned to drive what we called a"stick shift". My Camaro has buttons near the steering wheel where I could switch to manual. My husband used to play with them all the time. Still I never learned.

Time for a new car.

One afternoon when I was in college, a young lady impressed herself upon me because her car wouldn’t start. It had died as she tried to park it and she couldn’t get it to restart. Fortunately for her, it had died in a parking place behind a building that morning; unfortunately, it was a place she wasn’t supposed to park. So I took her key, slid in behind the wheel, turned the key, and fired up the engine. “What did you say was the problem?” I asked. She drove straight home and didn’t have another problem starting that car again.

Back in the day I drove aVW bus. Late one night I was on I 85 just cruising along when a sport car went flying pass (I was going 65 ) just as his taillights were going out of sight from behind a billboard Flashing red lights on top of a hiway potroll car came on to the Interstste. If I had been driving any thing with a front end He would have wrapped it around my car. And the point of this is that I too was able to laugh as I motored past the Cop and the sport car. 10 min down the road however the sportrs car past and vanashed into the night!

I’m pretty sure it was just a scenario used to show what a weird clunker he drives, and how long he will put up with it!

Reminds me of the 1980 Impala I used to drive. It was an automatic transmission, but it was awfully persnickety about starting in the cold. My current car starts easily, like it’s supposed to, but if you didn’t park it in reverse, it takes some work to get it in reverse when it’s cold.