This isn’t a TV story but you’ll like this story – especially if you’re a gearhead.

I offhandedly remarked to a buddy at work, Zippy the redhead, that I had never changed the oil in my own car. I’d always paid twenty bucks to have “the man” do it.

Well, Zippy immediately questioned my manhood. His exact words as I recall were that I didn’t have a hair on my (blank) if I didn’t climb under the car and change my own oil. He said he’d help me to achieve this stage of manliness I had somehow heretofore missed.

So one Sunday afternoon in March or April or May of 1986 he came over to my apartment and we went and bought the oil, filter, pan and climbed under the car.

Now if you’ve ever lived in Toledo or Buffalo or Cleveland or Syracuse you’ll be able to relate to what I’m about to say.

I climb under the car in March or April or May and the snow isn’t cold enough to just freeze you. Oh no. It melts and runs slowly down your back as you back the nut out to drain the old oil.

Then when you slip with the wrench you bust your knuckles with that particular extra sting that comes with the gray spring days, temps in the 30’s or 40’s.

Things were going well with the oil change job, though. We’d drained the tank into my new red plastic pan. We’d poured in the fresh quarts of oil. I think we’d even changed the oil filter out there in the snow.

So crank her up, Zip tells me. I turn over the engine in my 84 Civic wagon – the old moonrover looking things. Zip puts in the dipstick and says HUNH?! It wasn’t a good HUNH.

The dipstick showed the tank was overflowing with oil. Way, way too much oil. The slick black residue ran all the way up the shaft of the dipstick.

You auto whizzes are probably way ahead of me here. Turns out the knuckle busting nut we had removed – the one under the car with the snow melting down the back and freezing – it belonged to the transmission.

Zip and I had succeeded in draining the transmission and double filling the oil. And I learned another life lesson. It had something to do with who the real dipstick was.