His legs were stretched out in front of him and his shoes were off. The Whale was on cruise control at exactly 57 miles per hour, two miles over the speed limit. There was almost no traffic on the smooth two-lane road. The radio was dialed in to a great country music station; the sounds of Willy Nelson twanged through the interior.

Carl stifled a belch, then leaned over to the right: "Emma? Splash me a little bit of that hot sauce on this here burger, will ya? Burger King makes a pretty good burger, but there's no punch to it."

Emma reached for the bottle of Louisiana Cajun Toxic Panther Hot Sauce, which was sitting in one of the cup holders on the console. She sprinkled a few drops on the half-eaten burger.

"Howsa 'bout a bit more. That's hardly enough to bring tears to my eyes."

Emma splashed on a generous dollop of the fierce red sauce and winced when she saw a drop fall on the top of the console. The vinyl surface curdled like paint remover had been spilled on it.

Carl took a massive bite out of the burger and chewed away. Tears came to his eyes. "Vammmmf, dutt zath prattt ztufff ..."

Emma interrupted. "Carl, you know I can't understand you when you talk with your mouth full. That's a disgusting habit."

Carl gulped the wad of burger down and his throat swelled like a boa swallowing a bowling ball. "Right. I was saying that this here is some pretty good stuff. I wish we had bought the gallon jug instead of this teeny-weeny one quart bottle. The way I figure it, is if it don't make you break out in a sweat and make your eyes water, it's hardly worth it."

Emma shook her head and got a napkin to clean up the console top. A small section of the vinyl came off the surface and when a tiny bit of the hot sauce got on her fingernail polish, it bubbled up and cracked. No way was she ever going to try that hot sauce!

Carl swilled down the last of the Texas Light and crushed the can easily between his thumb and stubby forefinger. "Boy, it don't get any better 'n this. Cruisin' along in no hurry, with no schedules to keep, go anywhere we feel like. What could go wrong on a beautiful day like this?"

As if answering Carl's rhetorical question, The Whale sputtered, coughed, hesitated and stalled. A bank of red lights glared accusingly on the dash board.

"What the plu-perfect hell could that be?"

Carl eased the huge Suburban over to the shoulder, put the trans in neutral and hit the starter again. The big 454 engine fired right up and all the red lights went away.

"Hmmmph. Musta been a computer glitch. You know these new motors have got all kinds of fancy stuff under the hood."

He put The Whale back into gear and rolled smoothly off again. Ten minutes later, the Suburban hesitated once again - and stalled. Carl let out a string of vile navy curses and pulled off on a wide part of the road shoulder.

He got out, popped the hood, and started peeking around for possible sources of the problem. Emma joined him. "Maybe it's just something simple."

Carl gave her a disgusted look. "Woman, you don't know squat about motors and such. Why, just take a look at the complexity we're dealing with here! We got oxygen sensors, computer chips running the whole show, vacuum tubes running everywhere, double-pumper carb, smog equipment on everything but the glove compartment and God knows what else. I sure wish trucks were simpler like in the old days. Back then, all we had to deal with was a set of points, a coil, plug wires and plugs."

"Well, what are we going to do?"

"I'll just do some basic trouble shooting. First I'll yank the fuel line off and see if we got gas. You spin the motor over and I'll check for fuel flow."

Emma turned the key and the starter growled. Emma leaned out the driver's side window. "Do we have gas, dear?"

Carl walked over to the window, with streams of gas dripping off his Caterpillar baseball cap. "Yeah, I think so. Meanwhile, hand me that jug of drinking water and gimme a towel before I go up in flames."

A half hour later, Carl had done all the usual checks: spark, fuel, clogged filters, split vacuum lines, loose connections ... the works.

"It appears we got us some deep-rooted problems. Get that map off the dash and see how far we are from the nearest town."

Emma ran her finger over the map and smiled. "Good news. There's a decent sized town maybe 15 miles down the road. "

Carl wiped his hands clean on a red shop rag. "OK. Let's try to get there. If this thing keeps acting up, it might take a while."

Carl was right. It took nearly two hours to cover the 15 miles. The Whale would fire up, run for a minute or two, then stall once again. In between bouts of nasty cursing, Carl managed to limp into town.

Emma pointed out a small gas station on the right side of the road. The sign said POP'S SERVICE STATION, MECHANIC ON DUTY.

Carl eased The Whale into the station as the engine stalled once again. A very old man in overalls ambled out. "Got trouble, sonny?"

"Yeah. You got any diagnostic equipment here? You know, scopes and such?"

The old man scratched his chin. "Nope. Don't need none. A motor is a motor. You just find out what's wrong and fix it. Don't need none of that fancy crap to get things right."

Carl smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, old timer, but I'm afraid I'll need a real station with some real equipment. This here's a modern powerplant with computer stuff on it. Do you know where there's a station with some scopes?"

The old mechanic frowned. "Well, there's another station about three blocks down the road on the same side. Good luck, sonny."

Carl fired The Whale up again and grimaced when it stalled five more times in the three blocks. Things were getting worse. He pulled into the modern station with a sigh of relief. Two uniformed people came out.

"Yes sir. Can we help you?"

"You betcha. Got me a stalling Suburban here and I'll need some serious diagnosis."

"Just pull it right inside the bay here, sir. We've got every piece of diagnostic equipment known to man and we can fix you right up."

Five minutes later, The Whale was in the bay with a half-dozen different leads fixed to various parts of the engine. One mechanic flicked dials while the other one took readings. They took a lot of notes and punched all kinds of buttons. The computer screen emitted all kinds of lines, squiggles and blips.

After a half hour, they rolled the first piece of equipment away and brought another one forward. It was an impressive device, about the size of a phone booth, with a full computer keyboard, a huge screen and all sorts of tubes, cables, wires and probes.

The two mechanics fitted things to a dozen different points and started and restarted the motor 20 times. They frowned, got in a huddle and talked, then went out and came back with a third mechanic. He took charge of the situation and ran his own series of tests. An hour later, the three mechanics left the bay and went out to their office and whipped out a stack of thick manuals.

After poring over the books for 20 minutes, they came back and did some more testing. Carl just stood back and watched the trio of experts at work. These guys were impressive!

After another hour, they weren't quite as impressive. Clearly, the three ace mechanics were stumped.

"Uhh, sir, quite frankly we don't know what the problem is. But we'll keep trying."

Carl looked up at the sign on the wall that said LABOR RATES - $65 PER HOUR, and did some mental calculations. Hellsfire, he had already spent close to two hundred bucks and was no closer to solving the problem.

Right then, an ancient Dodge pickup pulled into the parking area with POPS SERVICE STATION crudely lettered on the side. Pop got out and limped over to the three mechanics. "You guys got a spare PH8A oil filter you could sell me? I got an oil change on the rack and I'm out."

One of the mechanics nodded. "Sure thing, Pops. I'll just put it on your account." He tossed a bright orange Fram filter to the old mechanic.

"Thanks. Say, you boys got a problem here?"

"Yeah. This one's got us stumped. We've run every check we can, and the engine keeps stalling."

Pops scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment. "Mind if I give 'er a look?"

The three mechanics smiled at each other. "Sure. Give it a go, Pops. What do you need? The Allen or the Sun Scope?"

"Neither. Just hand me a small straight-slot screwdriver and a clean paper cup."

The three mechanics and Carl all looked at each other.

Pops unscrewed the hose clamp holding the gas filter on the fuel line, and let the gas drain into the paper cup. He then took the gas outside, found a clean, dry section of cement, squatted down and slowly poured the gas on the cement.

Carl squatted down next to the old mechanic. ""Say, just exactly what are you doing there, Pops?"

"Well, I'm doing on old-time test to check for water in the gas."

Carl looked puzzled. "Just how are you gonna find out if there's water in the gas by dumping it on the ground?"

"Not on the ground. If you look close, you'll see that I poured it on some cement."

"So?"

"So when you pour gas on cement, the gas will absorb into the cement. If there's any water in the gas, it'll stay on top of the cement. I learned that trick about 60 years ago. Get real close and take a look."

Carl scrunched down and peered closely. Yep, sure enough. The gas was gone and there were very small puddles of water laying on top of the cement.

"Well, I'll be double-damned!" said Carl.

Pops slowly got back up and wiped his hands on his pant legs. "Now, chances are there's some water in your float bowl. All it takes is a little bubble of water to temporarily clog a jet. Drain your float bowl and you should be OK. And while you're at it, stick a fresh fuel filter on. Well, I gotta go now."

Carl held up his forefinger. "Wait a minute, Pops. What do I owe you for the trouble-shooting?"

"Oh, two bucks ought to cover my time."

Carl gave Pops a twenty and thanked him profusely, then went inside with a smile on his face from ear to ear.

The smile vanished when he got a bill from the three mechanics for $249.95 for services rendered.