DAVE BARRY Now to Jump Start Your Car When the Battery
Dead Dave harry ft,. 1947) is the author of more than thirty books el humor. A graduate of Haverl❑rd College. Barry taught writing for a consulting firm before joining the Miami iiieraird as a humor columnist in 103, {When you write a nosiness letter, Barry advised his students, don’t say things iike “Enclosed, please find the enclosed enclosures.”] columns—collected in such volumes as Dove Barry: Boners Are My Beat (2003)—earned him a Maier Prize for commentary in we and appeared weekly until am. In Pft Maher When hm Dead Nov), Barry covered various aspects of adulthood—surprising many people, including his publisher, who claims that Barry ‘struggled hard against growing up his entire life,’ You Con Dote Boys When You’re Party (2014), in which this selection first appeared. takes the neat illogical step—into Pr/reciting and Other Top-ics !team Very Little About, the subtitle of the book. These include jump-starting a car, which Barry nonetheless manages to analyze in a forilleentstep process with humorous. if alarming, results at every turn.
1. Obtain a working ear from somewhere and park it next to your car.
2, Of, tf the owner isn’t around, you could just take off in the working car.
3. Rh. that would be wrong.
4.0n hush coos, locate the hoed, which is a big flat piece of metal in the from aorta bud pup on it.
5, Open both hoods. There will be a button or lever inside rho car on the driver Is side that you need ro push or pull, and her a latch somewhere under the from MIS Clt4rlOe same,Dne’Non to ramp ken Your Car When the Herten II Deed’ Hurl to The Lahr leader and Gude. echled br TknnIn Conk, elh en. W W Nato, .20, pp. 331 15 334 of the hood that you need to reach in and release, So your hest bet o. ro use crowbar.
6. Locate your car’s battery. Ir will be a black hos partly covered with a whitish•greenish fuze, This is ear leprtny. Do not mocha.
7, Obtain some jumper cables from somewhere.
8. Call yanci let them know there might be an emergency soon.
9. Do !his next part VERY, VERY CAREFUI1Y OR YOU WILL DIE.
10. Connect one end of the red jumper cable to the patio terminal (also called the ignition or carburetor) on your c’at’s battery. Then comma the other end of the red cable tie an electronic part such as the radio of the opposing car. Repeat this process in the opposite order with the black jumper cable, taking care to reverse the polarity.
11, Try to start your car. If the engine explodes in a giant fireball, something is wrong.
12. Maybe you should have somebody else try to start your car while you go get coffee a tninimum of igo Yards away
13. If by some miracle your car actually starts, do not turn it lever /am.
14. When you drive, be alert for hirther sips of tenable, such as a flickering of your headlights, which is an indication of a problem in your electrical system( 00 a cullj,jon with a building. WWI is an indication that you forgot to put the bond bark down. •
Strategies and Structures
1. Assuming the role of know-it-all father who’s giving sage counsel to a ter. Barry attenuates the process he’s analyzing into Fourteen steps. In a ‘igh humorous (but more accurate) analysis, the process of jump-starting a car can be accomplished in about half a dozen essential steps. If you begin with “obtain car’ “open hood,” what would the other steps be?
2. Among the six or so essential steps in jump-starting a car, which one is the most complicated? What smaller steps could you break it down into for clarity—a:d safety?
3. When connecting the jumper cables, says Barry, take special care “to reverse the polarity” (to). Where else in his analysis do we get signs like this that Barry’s per. sona has virtually no idea what he’s doing but that Barry himself does (maybe))
4. Other Methods. Barry frequently uses comic (not to mention unnecessary) DEFINITIONS, as in step 4 where he tells the reader what the saint tod he text. of a car is. What do these contribute to his humor? Point out several exampl
5. Explain Barry’s use of CAUSE AND EFFECT in step 14.
