I drive a 1994 Nissan Altima. It has 216k miles on it. It has been a great car, but I have also learned how to fix a lot of things due to it's age. The thing is that I like solving mechanical problems more than I like driving new cars. Full disclosure also requires me to state that I hate debt more than fixing old cars as well. So far this car has been fantastic. We bought it for 6.1k in 1998 and have spent no more than a couple hundred dollars per year fixing it since then. I love it I really do.
So anyway lately it has been stuttering and hesitating in when it is cold in the morning or in the evening. My wife's car had a similar problem a few years ago and it was her spark plugs, so that was the first thing I replaced. It had been about six years since I last did it and spark plugs are cheap and easy to install on this car.
Well that didn't fix the car so next I replaced the fuel filter. This job is a bit messy, well actually it's very clean due to the fact that gasoline is a very good solvent. Getting the filter out of this car only requires the removal of a couple of screws and the loosening of the hose clamps. Then it's man against beast to get those darn hoses off. Cars never have a lot of working room these days so all I could do was hold on to the fuel hoses with my dainty little finger tips and twist the filter with my woman hands.
I am not trying to be offensive to women. There are many women with much stronger hands than I have. Probably a good half of them in fact. The sad truth is that I was born with slender feminine lady like hands fingers and wrists. It's kind of embarrassing to be able to put a man's ring on my thumb and have it fall off, but that's what usually happens when I try on other men's rings just for the fun of it. My hands are no good for separating stuck fuel hoses from their filter. They are quite good for more precise jobs like nose picking though.
Anyway after about 20 minutes of struggling I finally got the filter out. It was dripping gas so I set it on top of a bucket. I installed the new filter and turned on the car. There was gas dripping everywhere, so I turned off the car, depressurized the fuel system and re-set the hose position on the filter. Now everything was set.
I drove the car to a meeting. It worked fine although the problem is not fixed yet. I came home and got my car fixing manual and sat down in the garage to read about what else it could possibly be. Unfortunately I sat down on the bucket that had the old filter on it. I jumped up, but it was too late. My pants immediately soaked through to my bottom with gasoline. The old filter had left a pool of gas on the bucket.
I figured this was not a big deal since I had had my hands covered in gasoline not two hours ago when I was changing the darn thing. So I put a couple of rags on the bucket to soak up the gas and sat back down to read. Only a couple of minutes later I realized again that I had made a poor decision. What I didn't know is that bottom skin is considerably more sensitive than hand skin.
At first I would describe the sensation as a bit uncomfortable. I tried to walk it off, you know stand up and sort of fan my loose pants, try to get it to dry out and evaporate. It seemed like it might work.
It didn't. I realized rather suddenly that my butt felt like it was on fire. I wasn't sure if I should jump in the pool or try to sit on ice cubes. I went in the house where only the two oldest kids were awake and started walking around very quickly looking for a solution. My first thought was diaper rash ointment. I looked in the diaper area, but struck out. Our baby is 3 and only needs a diaper for nighttime, he hasn't had a rash in ages.
Next I went to my running paraphernalia shelf. I found Vaseline and body glide. I knew that one of those might work but I knew this was no ordinary chafing that I'd gotten myself into, so I kept looking.
By now the boys are asking me clarifying questions like, "Your butt is on fire from gasoline?"
"Yes." I replied.
"How did it catch fire?" They asked.
"It's not really on FIRE." I said. "It just feels like it is burning up cause I got gasoline on my Bottom."
"Was the gas from the car?"
"Yes."
"How did it get on you? Is the car leaking gasoline?"
"No. I sat in a puddle of gasoline. Do you know where the Desitin is?"
"No. What would happen if you lit a match by your bottom?"
"Nothing. There's not that much gas, most of it's gone."
"Why is it burning then?"
"It is a stinging burn, like a rash or something."
"Well why did you sit in it?"
"I didn't do it on purpose. I sat in it accidentally, and I didn't think it would hurt because it doesn't hurt to get it on your hands, really."
"Why does it hurt your bottom more than your hands?"
"Because bottoms are more sensitive than hands. That's why we spank bottoms. Instead of hands."
"You spank bottoms because it hurts more?"
"No." Backpeadling. "We spank bottoms with our hands because a bottom is a big soft target and although it hurts, it doesn't do any permanent damage, and it needs to hurt or else it wouldn't work as a deterrant. Right?"
Ignoring my brief treatise on spankings and jumping back to the subject at hand. "Well if you did sit in gas and then lit a match would it catch your bottom on fire?"
"Yes, but I'm not going to do that."
"What if someone poured gas on their pants in the back and then got a match and lit it and put it by the back of their pants?"
"Well they catch fire, and burn themselves. Does mom keep the Desitin with the other skin medicines?"
"I don't know. But what if someone did do that, would they have to go to the hospital?"
"Yes, they would end up with severe burns and probably lose much of the skin on their back side. It would be very painful and sad and bad. But I don't have that problem. Oh here it is. My butt is on fire." Applying the Desitin, "Ahh, I hope this helps. Boys, never ever sit in a puddle of gasoline. Aahh. Move over I need to wash my hands."
The moral of the story is that gasoline is a solvent and should be washed off sensitive parts of the skin as soon as possible. I really only got relief after I showered, which was about 20 minutes after the Desitin.
Definitely Stupid.
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