Dear Perplexed in Poughkeepsie -
Try putting a cup of sugar in her gas tank. That should calm her down a bit.
- Abbey
On 7/15/05, Allen C Miller, Jr. <acmiller@mhcable.com> wrote:
> Dear Abby~
>
> As you know, 'M' and I have been having a lot of problems over the last two
> years. She's had quite a few health issues after rising from her 20-year coma
> and moving east to upstate New York. We're all past that now, but something
> more ominous is looking. For the last two weeks, her behavior is, well, giving
> me great concerns for her mental state. With all the problems she's been
> having, she should be taking it a little easy, but that isn't the case.
>
> When she starts in the morning, it isn't the usual churning and steam rising
> through the louvres from the starter. It's one or two turns and VeROOOM. If
> I'm not careful, the tach races to 2000. She's acting like a teenager. To calm
> her down a bit, I take her the back way to work over the old Dutch farm route,
> with those ridiculously tight, reversed banked chicanes, hoping she'lll just
> quite down and act her age. But no, she has a mind of her own, and just guns
> it like some 90's something hopped on nitro.
>
> We enter town after the little run, and all she does is embarrass me. At each
> stoplight she pulls my foot down against the accelerator, leaving me no choice
> but to pretend I'm enjoing it. Every time she sees a younger model, she races
> ahead part of the block until I can get her back line. I think she must have
> had quite a different life in Southern California, but I just don't feel
> comfortable asking about her past.
>
> I've tried everything from placating her insatiable demand for advancing the
> spark, guzzling high octane gas (I even gave into a tank of racing fuel hoping
> she'd get it of her system!). I even resorted to pulling that stupid sports
> coil with the white plastic and replacing it with a more appropriate dowdy
> Lucas stock coil dated 12-55, hoping it would remind her of age. Dou you think
> she come to her senses? Absolutely not! She had some mystery mechanic throw in
> an MSD-6 under the passenger foot box, thinking I wouldn't notice.
>
> I've gone the other route, depriving her of basic respect -- leaving her in a
> haybarn at night, not putting her top up when it start's to sprinkle. Nothing,
> I mean nothing, seems to daunt her.
>
> Jean also notices it. When we go around corners climbing the Berkshire hills,
> M sudden will dart ahead around hairpins, forcingJean for the sissy handle.
>
> She's incorrigible. It's getting so bad, she won't even think of a simple
> evening drive without the windscreen is down.
>
> Personally, I think she's acting out a bit because she's going to turn 50 in
> October. It's happened to others. Or maybe it's not just mid-life crisis but
> something more serious; perhaps Althzeimer's. It almost seems the only thing
> she remembers is that test drive at Warwick the week she left for America. I
> don't know.
>
> Any advice will be welcome. We can keep going like this. What should we do?
>
> Allen
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