For Whom the Oil Light Flickers

A Manly Humanities Man's Guide to Auto Maintenance
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​By Zach Hively

The oil warning light came on in my girlfriend’s car the other day, and she wanted me—me!—to Do Something About It.
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I cannot be the only English major this has happened to.

Sensing the Call to Adventure at this point in our romance, I agreed to take a look. I may have a degree in literature, but I am not otherwise an idiot. I know, deep down, that after I take a look—and if I am a very lucky man—I will get to use some of that gritty orange hand soap that smells so nice.

My struggle must not go unchronicled. Not if it can help thousands of other Manly Humanities Men—maybe even dozens of them—to get to use the gritty orange hand soap that smells so nice.

Here, in MLA style, is how I Did Something About It:

1. I read the manual. The ENTIRE manual. Because I have this affliction where I cannot see words without reading them. It’s bad. It’s how I, alone among my classmates, finished Paradise Lost.

​BONUS TIP: Read the manual while seated in the car itself. It provides the same thrill as reading the Narnia books while visiting England.

2. I determined, using my advanced training in critical reading, that the oil warning light indicates a warning in the oil system. Probably a lack of oil pressure. This can be caused by a misalignment in one of the variables in the equation PV=nRT, which I cite at parties to prove that Manly Humanities Men pay attention in physics class too.

3. I translated this knowledge across disciplines. In humanities-speak: Check the oil, you dipstick.

4. After some setbacks in applying theoretical knowledge in a practical setting, I located the car’s engine.

5. I inspected the long flimsy metal testing rod whose name I can’t think of. This thing required graduate-level interpretation. Oil is a viscous substance that clings to long flimsy metal testing rods and leaves room for culturally filtered nuance even upon subsequent readings. But I concluded that the car did, in fact, need oil.

​6. I hoofed it to a gas station convenience store to buy some oil. I chose the gas station over the auto parts store because I felt that I, and the ascot I was wearing, would face less unfriendly criticism there.

​BONUS TIP: Turn down the offer to buy a funnel. Lie that you already have one. A Manly Humanities Man can take only so much abuse before breaking.

7. I made certain my girlfriend was watching from the window when I opened the hood in the driveway. I knew that this time, I could do so on probably the first try.

8. I poured the oil into the place I am fairly confident oil goes. I glugged only a few glugs in other places. Doing so is just fine. I mean, have you SEEN one of these engines before? Oil is EVERYWHERE in there.

9. My girlfriend made it directly to the dealership’s service center and spent $1400. I’m happy to say that nothing critical exploded or caught fire on her way there, leastwise not that she’s mentioned.

​And THAT is how I earned the privilege of using the gritty orange soap. But I made sure to leave just a bit of dark grease under my fingernails. This will help me intimidate my fellow elbow-patchers by showing them what a real Manly Humanities Man can do.