True stories from "under the hood"

I imagine some people think my previous post about the Prevention of Cruelty to Hitching Animals was a joke.  But no!  This is a real problem.  Be serious.

This "alert" speaks for itself.  Notice was posted at the visitor center at the Bristlecone Pine Forest, in the White Mts. of Nevada.









We're not going to do any stories about dogs in cars, fun as that is--way too common.  But what about chimps in cars?  That's a little more unusual...

Here's a story from "This American Life," probably the best radio show on the airwaves:  A chimpanzee and his trainer, who has a business of showing the chimp at parties, are driving in a thunderstorm. The chimp becomes very afraid of the lightning. When lightning strikes nearby, the chimp freaks out, tosses the man into the back seat, and starts driving. The chimp does a good job of driving for a while, but then has an accident. When the police show up, the man blames chimp, saying:  "He was driving,  It wasn't my fault." Obviously, the cops don't buy this explanation.

Stephanie Rinza, who lives in New York City, rescued a kitten that was stranded in the trunk of a drunk driver's car.

Airplanes
I used to be a pilot of small planes.  One summer, we flew to a rustic island in Lake Michigan to go camping.  On returning to our Cessna 172 a few days later, I noticed a robin flying away from the plane.  We were anxious to get the plane loaded and go home, but suddenly I remember reading somewhere in my training that you should check the engine compartment for bird's nests.  But to do that, I needed to remove the engine cover, which required a screw driver.  I was able to locate one--on my Swiss army knife.  Sure enough, there was a new robin's nest inside, with lots of flamable grass.  If I hadn't removed it, the engine could have caught fire.  Or we would have had to make an emergency landing, to see what the smoke was about.