The Quest for The White Whale

As you may remember, my original plan was to rent a car for the purpose of moving my things from point A to point B; a reasonable, if expensive, plan if ever there was one.

Plans change, however, and now you can think of me as Ahab (or call me Ishmael), for I am on a quest for a white whale:


You can tell she's a serious lady because she's wearing a trench coat.

There's a little bit of back-story to be had here. I have a friend, MG, with whom I traveled the halls of Portland State University; post graduation, we both got hired by the same Community College, and suddenly his lack of transportation became an issue. He thusly inherited a monster of a vehicle that had been in his family since his youth, and which had made the trek from Florida to Portland many years ago. The monster?

A White 1993 Ford Aerostar Extended Cab, with a Manual Transmission (now the above commercial makes a great deal more sense to you, I'm certain).

We promptly started calling the thing the "White Whale", because it is enormous and draws a lot of attention to itself.* Being pretentious English majors might have had an additional influence on the name-choice.

Now, the White Whale had been a reliable companion to MG until just before spring term started, when it conked out rather suddenly. Rather than investigate very deeply, MG decided it was time to buy a car of his own choosing --preferably one that achieved more than 5MPG in the city.  He settled on a little Hyundai, and the White Whale settled into place outside MG's NE Portland Apartment.

The crux of the story happens here, so don't change the channel just yet, folks.  The new plan, the revised plan, the improved plan, is to fix the White Whale, buy it from my dear friend, and load the thing for my journey.

The first potential culprit in the demise of the beast is a clogged fuel filter.  MG and I acquired a new one of those this past weekend, and prepped for surgery:

The tools of the trade, in the jaws of the beast. (And other cliches)

I prepped myself by putting on protective wear:

Then, we got to business: MG read the instructions and handed me things, and my tiny little self acted as surgeon:

After much careful maneuvering, and a lot of gasoline pouring into a coffee canister, we were ready to make the transplant happen:

The offending organ. Also, me looking like a filthy hobo.


MG and I were ultimately successful in making the switch happen, and no one lost any limbs or blew anything up,¹ so there was a great deal of pride and self-satisfaction in the air as we cleaned up our jetsam.

Unfortunately, I am still as Ahab.  The transplant didn't fix the problem, and we have to move on to the next possibility. However: nothing can diminish the glory of our quest, nor our determination to complete it.

If the Whale lives, I shall have it.




Notes:
* Also, I believe it ate a man's leg once, but that's just hearsay.
¹ It should be known that, since MG and I are academics (and academics in the Humanities), explosions and personal injury were a distinct possibility. We should probably have received some sort of medal for not dying.
² Our flotsam refused to be included in the proceedings.