Ford > Mercedes

Anyone who knows me pretty well knows that I REALLY like cars. Really like them. I also consider myself to be fairly knoledgeable about cars. Oftentimes I can diagnose a problem with a car by listening to it, and know almost every make and model of car in the United States from the year 1990 on. (Yes I know a lot of cars from before that time, but I *really* know all the cars after) Yeah, I know a lot about cars.

Or, so I thought.

Yesterday I got to the parking garage on the way home before Sarah, and waited for her in the car. I put in the key, and rolled down the windows in our little Tiberon. I fell asleep, and because Sarah got hung up at work, was asleep at least a half hour before she got there. When she showed up, I pulled the lever and sat up, and pushed the clutch in as I turned the key.

Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click!

Uh-oh. The engine was catching and starting over. The battery was run-down. I looked down and saw why: when I fell asleep the radio was on with a cd playing, but at to low a volume for me to hear. The battery in the Tibby is over 5 years old, so that's not really a big shock.

Sarah waved down a friendly lady and asked her to give us a jump, we even had the jumper cables. She obliged, and pulled her roughly 2000-model year Mercedes S class next to us. I had our hood open, nad the jumper cables in my hands, ready to get going.

There was a problem. She had never opened her hood before, and didn't know how to. Ha! Oh how funny, right? I mean, who can't open a hood! I walked over, happy to quickly pull the lever and pop the hood.

Where's the lever? I know where they're SUPPOSED to be, where they are in every freaking car, but it is not there, above where one's left foot would be. Mind you, this is someone else's car, and I don't want to go poking around too much, but it didn't take long to see. That freaking lever was not there. There's an array of buttons in the cabin akin to the cocpit of a miliray jet. I even see a red 'bat phone' by the glove compartment 'just in case.'

I stand there and look at the buttons, their in their german engineered perfect placement, and wonder like a child what would happen if I started pushing a bunch of them REALLY fast. Either way, there are no buttons that depict a hood of the car. There is a button that one would push in the case of being towed, but nothing for the hood.

I walk around to the front of the car. This is ridiculous. There wouldn't be a button up front.....would there? After a minute's search, no, the germans aren't that stupid.

Out the owner's manual comes. At this point, I'm embarrassed. I could have changed her sparkplugs in the time we've been doing this....if I could get the dang-ed hood open, that is.

No where in the introduction is there a mention of a 'hood release.' I think quickly that the English call the hood a bonnet or something, but that isn't there, either. I look at the start of each section, at the bullet points. No luck.

There's a 260 page book on how to operate the navigation unit in the car. Out that comes. No luck. I'm laughing nervously, Sarah is laughing at me, and the woman is just confounded by all of this. I look through the buttons again, down by the pedals again. NOTHING.

Out comes the manual again. Finally, I locate it! It is bearily noted, on one page, item number 3 that the hood release is, in fact by where one's left foot is, except that it is against the side of the car. Also, it is unmarked, black, and slimmer than Kate Moss after gastric bypass surgury.

I pull the lever, and pop! The hood opens slightly, and reveals a tab to pull to open it the rest of the way! Hooray! We can get going! We can....we.....where.....where's the battery?

Oh no. I can't find the battery. There's a black plastic box up front, but that has a lock on it, and after checking the manual, is the fuse box for the car. Where's the battery?

I am, at this point, totally humiliated. I DO know a lot about cars. I'm great with them. But I couldn't open the hood to this car, and now I can't find the battery. I'm done.

Fortunately right at this time another nice lady wanders over to us, noticing the two open hoods. She drives a Ford Escape, and offers to save what little pride I have left, I mean....offers to give us a jump. The Mercedes lady leaves, a blurr of German engineering and disarming complexity, and up drives the Escape.

Big lever marked "Hood" with a picture. Pull that. Battery right up front where it should be. I hook up the cables, making sure to put the negative on our car to a the chassis, and in a minute our car starts up.

Ford > Mercedes.