pam, the boys, and i just got back from the mobile, alabama for the weekend. we were there to throw a surprise party for pam’s dad. the surprise was that his birthday isn’t until december 28th and pam’s birthday was actually the 18th, the day the party was thrown. what better way to surprise someone with a surprise party than to hold it on someone else’s birthday. it was a good party and he was definitely surprised.
fred, the explorer, had a “check engine” light on its dashboard come on this afternoon. well, there is 180 miles between mobile and baton rouge and i really didn’t feel like breaking down in-between the two cities so my dad and i took it to autozone to have them pull out their “code checking thingy”. this little device hooks up to an electronic port in the truck and is supposed to tell me why the “check engine” light is on. it took awhile but we finally got the guy to bring the “code checking thingy” to my explorer and plug it in. the “thingy” told us that my truck was suffering from a code “p0455” – which was an “emissions evacuation system leak – gross leak”. this sounded pretty bad to me. still the guy at autozone didn’t know what it meant and nether did my dad or i so we went home to search the internet – the source of all automotive knowledge. after a quick search of the net i found out that my truck was probably suffering from the most deadly of all vehicle problems – a loose gas tank cap.
we tightened the gas cap and the “check engine” light hasn’t come on since then.
i feel better knowing that my truck takes such good care of me.