So, previously, I talked about my first car, the 1987 Toyota Corolla, SR5 - hatchback.  I loved that car and it loved me, however, it was falling apart one bolt at a time.  Because I learned to drive stick on it, I really abused the clutch, so much so that I was driving on a slipping clutch for 6 months.  It was awful, I would have to rev the engine up to 3,000 rpm then drop the clutch just to make it stick.  I'm sure you can only imagine what it looked like as I'm doing clutch drops at a red light.  the thing was lurching everywhere and sometimes I would accelerate into a busy intersection and the thing would start slipping and not go anywhere.  Nothing like looking at a semi-truck barreling down on you and your POS car won't move.

 

Now, I owned this automobile in high school, and of course I always wanted to drive my girlfriend home from school (even though she lived 1/4 mile away and could walk home in 5 minutes).   I started noticing that it was becoming harder to disengage the clutch to shift gears.  It was like I had to pump the clutch just to get out of gear then I had to JAM it into the next gear.  One day, after school, I was driving my girlfriend home and when we got to her neighborhood I realized that the clutch pedal was going to the floor and I had no chance of getting the car into neutral to stop.  I realized that I had no cash to pay for a tow truck if I stalled the engine; so I quickly started troubleshooting on how I could drop my girl off and get home without stopping.  My only option was to ask my now wife, to jump!!!

 

At first she looked at me like I was crazy, which I was, but I explained in the most technical way the magnitude of the situation if she didn't jump.  And, as if her mind converted into a man's brain, she grasped the problem and complied with the action she needed to take.  As we rolled up to her house, I slowed the car down as much as possible until the rpm's were puttering, and when I reached a speed somewhere above crawling, she opened the door and jumped.  I couldn't believe she did it!  She landed on her feet, didn't fall, and turned to waive goodbye.  It was at that moment, I knew that I would marry her.

 

The funniest part of this story is that I drove the entire way home, approximately 3 miles, while never stopping once.  There are 5 stop signs and three stop lights from her parents house to mine, and I didn't stop once.  AWESOME!