I honestly have no idea who originally taught me this, but one of the more useful lessons I tried to put into practice while dating was to get in good with my date’s parents.  I suspect it was a bit of wisdom from my parents coupled with suggestions from other influential people and a dose of common sense.  In any event, I made it a point to do things in such a way that my date’s parents wouldn’t worry about me or my intentions.  I tried to make sure to have my dates home early or at least on-time, I made it a point to talk to them and help them get to know me, and above all I tried to be myself around them knowing that I would fail in the long term at trying to be something I wasn’t.

In my effort to develop a relationship with my date’s parents, I even got in trouble from time to time for spending too much time talking with her parents, especially when it came to the beautiful girl who would later be my wife.  However, in the end, getting in good with the future in-laws was more a matter of being genuine and doing the right things than it was me deliberately trying to “shape” the relationship.    In any event, my in-laws quickly learned to trust me in ways that when I think back almost shock me.  One example came up not long after Liz and I started dating…

Liz bought a lightly used car through a wholesaler not long after turning 18.  Despite smelling of cigarette smoke, it was in solid shape and a major boon to Liz and her family while it served as her family’s second car, quickly becoming critical to the logistics of the household.  However, her car had a bad habit… it would randomly refuse to start.  Universally, this would happen when Liz was alone somewhere, and would magically fix itself whenever someone else showed up to help.  Because her family only had one other car, they weren’t always available to help her out when her car acted up, so I would come to wherever she was to provide the magic touch required to get the car to start.  I didn’t really mind… having an extraordinarily pretty girl who was grateful to you for helping rescue her couldn’t be a bad thing.

Unfortunately for the purposes of troubleshooting it, it NEVER happened when I was around, and I was around a LOT.  In fact, sometimes Liz felt like people didn’t believe her when she described the problem because it was so intermittent and because it never happened when anyone else was around.  However, I was working fixing electronics at the time and was well familiar with what I called “the magic workbench effect.”  Intermittent issues in electronics would disappear as soon as someone brought their television, computer, or other item into the shop.  I could often run them on my workbench for days without seeing the problem; and without seeing the problem, it was almost impossible to diagnose and repair.  The same applied to Liz’s car.  I could make educated guesses about what was wrong with the car, believed it wasn’t just a user error, but couldn’t do anything to fix it unless and until it became a more common problem.

One day, I was at work when I got a call from Liz’s mom.  Liz had been headed out to work when her car began to act up again.  Running late, she took her dad to work and took the family car rather than deal with the issue.  Her mom, at home teaching piano lessons throughout the day, went out and tried repeatedly between lessons to apply the magic touch to get the car started again.  After several attempts to start the car failed, she decided to call me.  This decision seems kind of odd in retrospect.  Liz and I hadn’t been dating all that long, and I’m not even sure where her mom got my number or what motivated her to call me except that I had a reputation for fixing things.  While I’m not really sure why she called me, I was (and still am) grateful she was comfortable enough with me to ask if I could come take a look at the car.

I don’t remember if I was at school or work, but either way I was in a position where I could leave at my on recognizance.  I grabbed a toolbox, jumped in my car, and headed over with the hope that the problem would continue long enough for me to troubleshoot it.  I had suspected it was simply a starter solenoid that was misbehaving, and had even stopped to purchase one on my way over hoping to get the car back to a reliable running condition before Liz got off work.  Sure enough, when I got there, the car was still misbehaving.  However, a quick check proved that the problem wasn’t with the solenoid or the starter.  There was a problem in the electrical system inside the car that would require a little more digging.

Liz’s mom stood by and watched as I tore the dash apart.  I can only imagine the doubt that would have gone through my mind if I were standing over a 19 or 20 year old kid who I barely knew as they tore apart my kid’s car.  For some reason, she trusted me just the same.  As I tore into the steering column to get access to the ignition switch and wiring,   I found the reason they weren’t able to get rid of the smell of smoke… a lit cigarette had fallen into the plastic shrouding of the steering column and burned into a pile of ashes in a place that wasn’t accessible.  That problem was solved!

Another thing I found was that the ignition switch was working fine.  It was delivering power to all the right places to get the starter to turn, but that power wasn’t making it to the starter itself.  Theoretically, there wasn’t anything but a wire connecting the two, so I had to trace the wire from one end to the other.  What I found was unexpected.  Apparently the previous owner had installed a starter lockout device under the dash that nobody knew about.  It worked by interrupting the wire connecting the ignition and starter solenoid, and used a special key to determine whether or not the car should start.  The previous owner had left the key in the interlock, so nobody had even noticed it was there.  Apparently this little gem of a device was going bad.  The relay contacts must have been dirty, so it would occasionally make contact… and occasionally wouldn’t.  It just so happened that it would make contact when anyone but Liz was around.  A few quick snips, crimps, and some shrink-wrap later, the interlock was removed and the car started flawlessly.    Liz was validated in her belief that it wasn’t just her doing something wrong.

That hour or two of working on a stupid little car in front of my girlfriend’s house wasn’t anything substantial for me.  It was the kind of thing I did, and still do on a regular basis for almost anyone.  I have always liked using the skills I’ve developed to help other people, and if it happens to help me it’s a bonus.  However, this act of service was a good way to solidify a growing trust with the parents of the girl I would later marry.  My mother-in-law still mentions this episode from time to time when we get to story telling, and I am grateful for the opportunity it gave me to show them the kind of person I am and strive to be.