We had received the blessing of about seven or eight inches of snow, which turned out to be the light, fluffy type of snow that is easy to remove... just a sweep of the snow brush and voila!  Except, well, there was so much that a swipe only took the top half.  Still easy, just took a bit longer.  That wasn't the big issue, however.  The problem was the ridge of snow left behind the last time a snowplow came through.  Taller than the Duckmobile's rear bumper it was.  Sighing to myself, I got to work... and by work, I mean I started to trudge through the stack of snow trying to kick it into the parking lot and lower it enough that I could get out.  I may still be out there if it wasn't for a miracle.  A member of maintenance came walking down the hill from the building north of Pond Central... pushing a snowblower.  I immediately began waving my hands over my head and jumping up and down (and by jumping, I mean "carefully raising myself up on my toes by a couple of inches" so I didn't fall down).  He looked over at me, and I pointed at the offending pile of snow behind my car, then folded my hands in front of me in supplication... "Please please please come clear this for me please..."

And he did.  Two minutes later, my car was freed from its snowy cocoon.  And then came the time I had been dreading for two days: starting my car.  As you may remember, the Duckmobile was having a conniption on Wednesday night, revving its engine without any input from yours truly's right foot.  Thursday I took a taxi into work, and Friday was Snow Day.  So this was to be the first time I'd tried it since then.  I'd looked online and found so many different reasons for an engine to surge on its own that I had no way of even possibly narrowing it down... everything from a loose gas cap to a total rebuild of the starter, and no, I don't know how that would cause surging either.  I crossed my fingers, put key to ignition, and started the car.

And it didn't act in any way out of the ordinary.  Oh, the revs did increase on their own, but it was the normal way... when she starts up, she idles low, but it slowly speeds up to about 1000rpm more or less and then stays there.  Which is exactly what happened now.  Not believing my good luck, I immediately drove to the mechanic.  Though busy, they brought her right in and spent a good two hours working on her.  Meanwhile, I watched four very good episodes of M.A.S.H., a show I haven't watched in years.  But all good things must come to an end, and the guy came in with the bad news.

They couldn't find anything.  Oh, they could guess at what might have happened, but that would be all it was, guessing, because there was no evidence that anything untoward had occurred.  Thus, the official diagnosis is "could not repeat reported problem."  UNofficially, the answer was "it's an old car, stuff like that can happen."  If it occurs again, I'm to drive it right to the mechanic immediately, and do NOT turn the engine off.  But they don't think I'll have to worry about that.  Which means they don't know me at all, because I worry about EVERYTHING.  So the car is okay, they didn't charge me at all, and until the next time it snows, all is right with the world.

Oh hey, lookit that.  It's snowing.  Again.  Huh.  Go figure.

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