Oh.... Fiddlesticks!

So I'm cruising through the parking lot last evening, the car is running great and all of sudden the engine warning light came on. And stayed on. And it's still on. I do not like it when the engine warning light comes on. I want to turn the key and go where I have to go. I do not want to go to the mechanic.

I discovered I don't have an owners manual in my glove compartment to explain the ramifications of little light show. Needless to say, I immediately freaked out. The car is running great but I'm wondering if I'm going to make it the mile or so to get home. It was too dark to investigate under the hood so I spent yesterday night imagining the possible horrifying scenarios. It didn't occur to me until the morning that I could find the explanations on line.

So this morning I screw up my courage and go investigate -- under the hood. I've owned this car for over a year and I've never had occassion to look under the hood before but I'm feeling pretty confident when I find the inside the car latch release on the first try. The outside latch proved more daunting. It took a while to find it but I'm doing okay and now I'm confronted with -- the engine. The dipstick wasn't in the right place.

It was an adventure in learning, I'll tell you but I successfully identified all the vital fluids that might have caused this rude interuption of my formerly blissful driving experience. I've established that none of them are short of perfect and all are beautifully hued. I even checked the radiator fluid. That at least was its customary place in the front. And I checked my gas cap, which I discovered in my research could trigger this automotive code blue.

That didn't work. The good news is it could be one of about a thousand things, not all of them horrible. The bad news is I have to take it to the autoshop to get a diagnosis. Oy.

[graphic via]