Two Drunken Monkeys

So my oldest son has been looking for work recently, and there is one major obstacle in his way. We are a one car (truck actually) family of 5 and I work downtown. We live in what is generally called the suburbs. This provides a certain problem if he can find a job in our area, that of transport.

Enter his grandmother with a solution. Does he own a bike? No, but I have one that I haven't ridden in years and if he promises to take care of it and fix the cabling and brakes (the bike is older than he is) he is welcome to ride it. She volunteers to buy him a two stroke engine that he had seen downtown if he can do all the labor to install it. I was intrigued by the idea and gave him the go ahead and my mountain bike. Apparently once completed, this bike will get approximately 200 miles to the gallon and be able to reach speeds of about 40 - 45 mph. I had no idea that the comedy gold I would witness over the next few days would be more than worth it, above and beyond the end result.

Enter The Project

It is no secret that my oldest two children are more mechanically inclined that I am. Their biological father has worked on cars/motorcycles/etc for all their lives, and this drive has been passed on to them. It is their differing approaches to the work at hand that has made this project so enjoyable to watch, though they may disagree as to the humor value from their side of things.

Alex is impatient, and as he gets more excited, he tends to forget things that he obviously knows. The following exchange took place last night as I went out in the garage to check on their progress.

A: "Can you hand me that silver thing?"
Me: "What silver thing?"
A: "It's right over there somewhere. The silver thing."
Me: "Alex, you have all my tools out on the floor, what silver thing?"
A: "It's just right there. The silver thing, it's long and all silver."
Me: "My stuff is all over the place, a screwdriver? The ratchet?"
A: "Hang on, I'll get it." *moves over* *moves toolbox* *looks around* *finds tool*
A: "Here it is, the silver thing!"
Me: "The adjustable wrench?"
A: "Yeah, see, it's silver."

Taylor is methodical and patient, but that only works for the inanimate project ahead of him. He has little patience for the other workers on the same project (i.e. his older brother)

T: "OK, I'm going to hold the engine in place, and you need to adjust those bolts as tight as you can."
A: "OK, when?"
T: "I'm holding it right now, see, the chain is straight, go ahead and tighten it."
A: *Tightens one bolt, and after 30 seconds of twisting:
T: "Wrong way, it's righty tighty lefty loosey dumb%$^" (Ah, brotherly love)
A: "Ah, right" *Corrects mistake, proceeds to tighten one bolt, then shakes engine hard to see if it holds* It doesn't, considering it's mounted by at least four different points.
T: "Why did you do that?"
A: "To make sure it was tight enough."
T: "I'm sitting here holding it, tighten them all." *visibly irritated at this point, looks at his brother*
T: "You hold the engine, I'll tighten it."


Later that evening the two of them are wanting to try to get the engine started, just to make sure it'll hold.
I walk out to see the two of them, Alex on the bike, Taylor pushing him from behind. The engine is sputtering but not coming to life.

Me: "Shouldn't you be holding the clutch in? Then you build up speed and pop the clutch."
A: "Well, we haven't gotten the clutch adjusted yet, we'll do that once we know it works."
Me: "Wait, what else isn't working?"
A: "We still need to adjust the throttle so it works, and get the clutch adjusted..."
T: "and hook up the kill switch."
Me: *thinks for a moment*
Me: "Wait, you have no way to control the speed, disengage the wheels, or kill the engine, you've put a full tank of gas in there, and you guys are just going to start it up and see what happens?"
A: "Yeah, we figure if it gets too bad, I'll just reach down and pull out the spark plug."
Me: "I'm going inside, for your mother's sake, would you at least install the kill switch first?"



I swear if I can get a video camera in the near future these two will take YouTube by storm. More later.