Idle Adjustah

As if my pointless little life isn't miserable enough, now my goddamn car is giving me some serious shit. You see, I have an hour's commute to get to work. Then I'm out at midnight, rarin' to get home so I can do some serious drinkin' and internet porn research before the sun comes up. I have a 1986 VW Gulf that had 200,000+ miles on it before the odometer quit working last summer.

Now, when ever it's cold - a rare occurrence in New England during balmy January - the throttle sticks exactly 1/2 hour into my journey. And much like a Viagra erection, I can't get the fucking thing to go down. It's only a real problem in two places - the toll booth and the sleepy little neighborhood in which I live. Seriously, when ever I put the clutch in when it's like this, the engine revs right to the red line.

I'm sure you can imagine the fear in the faces of the toll collectors as I come chugging in, my foot full force on the brake and at the last second putting the clutch in to toss them the change, the engine breaking out into a scream reminiscent of a formula one car. And then a few minutes later screaming to a stop in front of my house, brakes smoking, waking all the babies in the 'hood. I'll admit, I thought it was funny at first. Now I don't.

Took the damned thing to a mechanic the other day. He said he lubed up the throttle linkage "some good" but it seemed pretty lubed up to begin with. That's because I've sprayed it with WD-40 about ten times, Einstein. Ah, then it's probably the "idle adjustah" the wise old buck said. "Them things is p'aht mechanical and p'aht 'lectricle. And y'ahs is gettin' long in the tooth, by Jesus." What ever happened to the good old days of carburetors when you could adjust the idle with just a screw driver or long fingernail for chrissakes?

I didn't stick around long enough to find out how much it would cost to replace the idle adjuster since the car is worth maybe $60 and I need to buy an MP3 player so I don't go insane during the commute trying to find one or two good songs on the shitty radio.