Don't Look Under The Hood

We are, for the most part, human. We are also, some of us, college students. Therefore, I take back the previous statement and say the following:

I am not a human, I am a college student.

Also, I am broke. Flat broke. Well, no, not flat broke, but if there is an opposite to rolling in money then the majority of college students are it. What with paying for meals, bills, services, and textbooks with special software slipped in by the publishing company which the odds are we will never use and therefore the extra hundred dollars attached to the selling price can be attributed to this lone compact disc.

As a college student, I have learned a valuable lesson, as I am a special college student. Why am I special? I own a car. And this car - my very own magic carpet - needs things. Gas, for instance. And check ups.

Like all college students, I panic when I hear a small klunk under the hood every now and then. Well, I DID panic, but now I simply take a new course of action. Follow the steps:

1) Hear the noise.
2) Ignore the noise.
3) Turn on the radio*, loud.

It panics all of us college students around the world that aren't made of money or don't come from fabulously rich and wealthy parents when our cars start to act up. To you it sounds like a klunk but to us it sounds like our last dollar sliding away down drain. We, for the most part, would rather run home to our parents and tell them that we agree with everything they've ever said than have to pay for services to our car.

You can probably guess the state of my automobile at the moment.

A klunk means doom. It means something, somewhere, is wrong. A tire is loose, the engine is about to explode, the gas tank will ignite at any moment, the springs in the seats are preparing to launch you clear through the ceiling.
But we, as college students, stand proud and adamant with our one creed: WE WILL NOT PAY TO HAVE IT FIXED! NEVER! NOT TODAY, NOT TOMORROW, NOT ON THE FINAL DAY OF JUDGMENT!

We are college students, we are broke, and we will wait, usually, until our cars have erupted in a spitting ball of grease and flame beneath us before we call for a repair man.

Go ahead, laugh. But if you're a college student like me, you know you do the same thing.

*Should the radio be broken, sing.