My car’s engine overheated a couple weeks ago, and this morning I finally got it into a mechanic, and evidently the thing to do when you need to drive a car that’s actively overheating is to turn the heat up all the way. You can roll down the windows, but per The Internet™, you need to crank that heat. The heat needs to be all the way on.
The explanation for this is that you need to release as much hot air as possible from the engine to keep the temperature of the engine as low as possible, and at least for me, it seemed to work. The little dashboard thermometer stopped screaming at me, I got to the mechanic safely, it’s in Dan’s hands now. But it sounds like a prank. It sounds like someone is messing with you. It sounds like someone is trying to make you do something silly but harmless in a moment of stress.
Turning the heat on when your engine’s overheating isn’t the only little life thing like this. Those rules of thumb, those life tips, those bits of wisdom your dad seems to know but you can’t understand how he learned them? A lot of them sound like pranks. Here are a few:
Ceiling Fans Run Both Ways
Changing the direction of a ceiling fan and running it in the winter can save you money on your heating bill, but that doesn’t make it sound possible, let alone helpful, let alone allowable under Mosaic Law.
Tree Roots Can Stop Your Sewers
You would think we’d be past the point of letting nature tell us where our sewage can flow. We are not. Trees are thirsty, and they are not above breaking into a pipe to get quenched, and our pipes are evidently not all built to withstand arboreal terrorism.
Certain Dogs Need Their Ear Hair Plucked/Trimmed Regularly
Breeding is really messed up.
Jumper Cables Get Worse Over Time
This one’s bullshit. The whole point of these is to be a safety net. I understand fire extinguishers but dammit let me keep a pair of yellow cables in my trunk for a decade until the one time I need them.
You Can’t Use Water to Put Out a Grease Fire
Again, not fair. Especially given how close the sink is to the stove.
Plungers
Imagine telling someone who just obtained running water that the solution to their toilet not flushing right is to take this rubber cup on a stick, try to make a seal between it and the porcelain, and then use it to physically push the water down into the pipes. The first time I saw a plunger actually work (I was seven, I took some heat for that one) my mind was blown.
