Man things are like a fucking Vietnam firefight over here!  I come in at 7am and I work all day, straight through lunch, work like a dirty dog, til 6-6:30pm, no let up.  And I am still behind.

Anyway, lately I've been hearing this boiling noise in the radiator/plastic reservoir after I shut off the Mazda.  So I'm not thinking too much obviously, before I know it, all the water has boiled away and yesterday on Route 3 coming west to work, just as I'm going up the big hill approaching Giants Stadium and Continental Arena, bazoom! blue smoke starts emanating 

from the hood.  I immediately shut off the engine and coast down onto the entrance to 120, my momentum carries me into Arena parking lot.

I open the hood, smoking like a blue volcano, this is serious.  So I sit there for about 1/2 hour, let the engine cool, a little longer, let it cool some more, then I open the radiator and pour in some water.  It goes in all right, after about 15 seconds, white smoke starts fuming out the radiator nozzle like a 19-century locomotive.  Hmmm, let it cool some more.  Car won't start.  Let it cool some more, car is starting to turn over, let it cool some more, fill the radiator with water, put the cap on, drive to work.  That's a good thing.

But I go out a little while later to refill the radiator, leave the cap off and start the car, vroom!  Brown oily water starts shooting out of the radiator nozzle like a geyser!   Oh, shit.  Some guy at the company recommends a shop down the road.  After cooling, I drive it over there, the guy puts water in the radiator, leaves the cap off, I tell him to stand back, start it, vroom!  Mount Mazda! 

"Cracked engine head" he stated immediately.  "The water is going in the engine and the pistons are pushing it back out where it came from."  I think I had a small crack that was causing the boiling sound, and then when the water was gone, the real heat blew the engine.  The white smoke in the Arena parking lot was the small initial amount of water I first put in after the blue smoke on the hill incident which broke me down.  That went into the engine and immediately turned into enough steam to boost a Shuttle.

The guy actually wants to give me $100 for the car, says he'll make more on it.  

I am looking today for a new vehicle.  Just in time for the big Labor Day weekend.  I wouldn't trade my life for anybody's.  Well, maybe whoever is the latest dude banging Naomi Campbell.

--Dick Acorn