I am not a car person.

I probably will never live down the time I drove for at least a mile on a totally flat tire — OK , on the rim — to work; I think I woke up all of Martins Ferry as my red Jetta limped up Ohio 7 and along the city streets at 6 a.m.

There are professionals for such things as fixing flat tires and changing the oil. There are car washes for cleaning dead bugs off windshields (although I was seen hosing down my Beetle a few weeks ago and even waxing on and waxing off a bit.)

I want to move to New Jersey where it is illegal to pump your own gas. I’ve never checked my oil or looked under my hood. (Hey, it’s a VW, the engine’s in the back, right?)

When it comes to cars, I’m definitely a “girl.”

I do, however, believe I’ve taught my daughter the importance of being an independent woman. She does not have to depend on a man — well, except to carry really heavy things ... and maybe to check the oil.

The two of us, however, do drive cars with stick shifts. Our kids had no choice but to learn to drive that way ... our vehicles have standard transmissions. Amanda was quite proud of the fact that she knew how to drive a stick in high school, a feat many of her guy friends had not accomplished.

But I have to say, I was quite proud of her when she came home to spend Father’s Day weekend with her dad, spiffing up that hand-me-down 1995 VW Jetta that soon was to be hers.

There she was vacuuming the inside, spraying Windex on the windows and surface areas; bagging up the trash that had collected over the years. That old car was downright clean!
Together, Dad and daughter touched up the little rusty spots on the front and hosed it down and shined it up. She put some elbow grease into the waxing, and I barely recognized that car.

And then, there they were, head-to-head under the hood, Bruce explaining where to pour the windshield washer fluid, how to add the oil and how to check the amounts of those fluids. She looked like a pro topping off the fluid thingies.

The smile on her dad’s face was equal to the pride she felt for working on the car — her car. It was quite a newfound skill.

And I felt a little guilty for not ever changing my oil or checking under the hood. (I guess that’s what prompted me to wash and wax my car the next day.)

But, a couple of weeks later, we had to deliver her new wheel covers to her. Bruce explained that she had to take this out and put this on, and do that before doing this. I could tell she wasn’t really listening.

“Oh, I’ll find a boy to do that, Dad,” she told him.

And it drove out all those thoughts of checking my own oil as I said to myself, “That’s my girl!”

‹ Phyllis R. Sigal is design editor at The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register and designer of Ohio Valley Parent. She is the mom of Amanda, 22, and Leland, 20.