The Best of Car Talk - #2612: Monotasking

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Leave it to a couple of mechanics to make the case for doing only one thing at a time. A defense of ‘Monotasking’ on this Episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us Click and Clack the Tappertr Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the missing persons division here at Car Talk Plaza. Yeah. Does the name Arup Gupta mean anything to you? Does it ever? And here's an actual letter from him. We fell in love with this name because this is a fellow that called us on the show a few years ago. And for the first five minutes that we spoke to him, all we kept saying was, what a beautiful name.

Arupupta. Gupta. It's like a mantra. It just flows off the tongue. Arrup Gupta. Arup Gupta. And then he went off the radar screen. We don't know what happened to him. We figured he got deported. Right. But we know now. We know now. And here's why.

Dear Tom and Ray, belated Merry Christmas and an early happy new year. I was trying to kill time during this prolonged holiday season by indulging on of the favorite pastimes of the times, surfing the internet. I did a search on my name, and lo and behold, I came across letters written by your loyal listeners. I read the letters with considerable interest and thought that I should come out of hiding and set the record straight for your sake, as well as that of your local listeners. I knew it. He's in exile. He's in the witness protection program. All right. Soon after I called your show, when I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, I returned to India, selling my 1987 Nissan Maxima, a lot of. along with all my other earthly possessions. Aparna, his wife and I, had a beautiful daughter there.

Her name is Anupria. Anupria Gupta. Like it. Aparna Gupta. Woo. I hope you are as fascinated and enamored by their names as you are with mine. So now you can have three mantras. Arup.

Aparna and Anupria. Gupta. Like the Hindu Trinity. Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshvah, in that order, and an increasing difficulty of pronunciation. Yes. I returned to Houston, Texas earlier this year. This is like one of those Christmas letters.

Right. Put a new roof of my house. Put a new roof of my house. And my kid just read war and peace twice. And he's only three. I returned to Houston earlier this year and acquired a 1999 Honda. Woo! Sounds like Hindu, Honda.

A court, among other things. So far, touch wood, I have had no need to call car talk on account of a car-related problem. So I hope you will read at least a portion of this letter in one of your upcoming shows and lay to rest theories on whether I am a doctor on NYPD Blue or an actor or have been driving a Mercury Mystique with an Ontario personalized license plate. you will also give some new mantras for your listeners to chant in the new millennium or some nice new Indian names for their babies. Faithfully, a Rupgupta. Arup gupta. Or a parna gupta.

I like a parna. A pardna gupta. Anupria gupta. Anupria gupta. You got the accent, man. I am from India. If you want to call us a bunch of. But your car, the number is 888-Gart talk.

8-8-28-2-7-8-25-5. Hello, you're a car talk. This is Gupta Talk. Yeah, who's this? This is Judy. Judy, Judy, Judy. Where are you from? From Arlington, Washington.

Arlington. You know there's an Arlington in all 50 states? No. You didn't know that, did you? I didn't know that. Well, it's true. Okay. Well, you know there's an Arlington, Virginia.

Yes. Sure. Of course, you know, there's an Arlington, Washington. I'm there. There's an Arlington, Texas. Sure. I mean, can you see the trend here? I see it.

Yeah, you do the extrapolation because that's from 3 to 50 is easy. Oh, yeah. So what's up, Judy? Well, this is kind of a long story. Oh, good. Okay, here we go. About a year and a half ago, Whenever I left my house, after traveling for about five miles, my temperature gauge would rise past the middle to about halfway between the middle and the red zone.

And then it would fall back down to the place where it normally stayed halfway between the bottom and the middle. This went on for about a year. So how long does it stay up there? Not long. Just a few moments and then it goes back. Right. Fine. I watched that.

And I replaced it. the thermostat. And did you say, hmm? Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. So I did replace the thermostat and then eventually, about a year later in August of this year, it totally overheated and I had a new head gasket replaced. Yeah. Hmm. And then in August, they also put in a new thermostat. Now, since August, my car's been great. It hasn't overheated at all, not once. Yeah. Well, now the second week of December, Twice that week, it started to do that same overheating thing. Really?

Just like it had done a year ago. Wow. So I told my husband. Yeah. And he said, oh, honey, that's just normal. There's nothing wrong. But I said it hasn't done that since August. Yeah.

So I told my car guys that this had happened, and I said, should I be concerned? And they said, oh, yeah, yeah, this is a bad sign. Well, it hasn't happened again. But everything so far seems to be fine. Yeah. And you haven't told us, and I'm going to guess. I think what kind of a car it is. Oh, I didn't tell you that.

I got your guess. I got mine too, man. I have mine written down right here. I'm going to write mine down. I'll show you mine. I even got the model. Plymouth. What do you got?

Honda Accord. I got Honda Civic. No, it's a Toyota forerner. And it's an 88. And you guys like Toyotas. 88 forerunner. Yeah. Well, I would say, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy.

I'm so, I'm so, I'm so much fun talking to you guys. It's fun for us, too. Because we make up stuff as we go along and you believe it. Absolutely. And I think that's just marvelous. I think that your husband is absolutely right. You do. That you should just go along happy.

Oh, no, I see. I couldn't disagree more. Really? I like that answer. Go along and be happy. Well, I mean, I agree with that part of it. But I couldn't disagree more with the diagnosis. I think there is something terribly wrong.

Oh. And I think you have a cracked. cylinder head. Oh, that could well be. I'm not denying that that's possible. See, I don't think that what the, what the, what the temperature gauge was doing was a predictor of anything that was going to happen later. Oh, you don't? I don't. My brother doesn't believe that. It's bogus. My brother thinks that the head gasket has a crack in it and a little bit of that hot stuff combustion gas got into the coolant and that's what made it. And that's what made a They go voop, whoop, up and down.

I don't buy it. Well, here's what you need to do. Okay. You could do one of two things. You can either believe your husband and my knucklehead brother and do nothing. On the other hand, it would be nice to know if there were nothing wrong, and they can do that by doing a couple of little tests. Okay. And if they say to you, it passes both tests, then I would ignore the temperature gauge and do it my brother suggests.

Are these invasive tests? No, these are not invasive tests. Slightly invasive. No, they're hardly, no, they're not invasive at all. You have to take off the radiator cap. You have to take off the radiator cap. That's invasive. That's easy.

That's easy. That's easy. They have to take off the, they're going to sniff the exhaust. They're going to sniff the vapors in the radiator and check for the presence of unburned hydrocarbons with the emissions tester. And then they're going to pressurize the cooling system and see if any of the cylinders fills up with coolant. All right. And both of those tests, if done, we'll determine if you have a cracked head or a cracked head gasket. And we've done those tests on my brother repeatedly and determined that he definitely has a cracked head.

Anyway, that's what I would recommend. And if the test are negative, then just drive it, Judy. Okay. All right. Oh, thanks, you guys. Thanks for calling. All right. See you.

Bye, bye, bye, bye. All right. Tommy, do you remember last week's quasi-automotive puzzling? How quasi was it? Well, very quasi. In fact, I think you felt quasi when you're... Anyway, I'll have the answering. about a minute.

Hi, we're back, listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Collect the Tappert Brothers. We're here to talk about cars, car repair, and, duh, the answer to last week's puzzler. What was the question? Well, I stole this quasi-automotive puzzler from the uncorrected galleys of a puzzle book by Terry Stickles, with a forward by NPR's own puzzle master, Will Shorts. Oh. Known to his friends as? Frost you.

Frust you. Yeah. All right, here it is. I'll try to make it free. I remember it now. You have been invited to go on a camping trip in the woods with 25 or 30 of your closest friends, and you've rented a cabin.

So you're piling your cars. This is the automotive part. Oh, that's right. Remember? And your drive... Right? That's what made it. This was the loophole. And you drive to the cabin.

The next morning, everyone gets up, and it's decided that cookie is going to make homemade pancakes for everyone. But he needs exactly two gallons of water for the recipe. So you are sent to the well to fetch two gallons of water and you've got no measuring device. So you get to the well and there are two containers. One says 13 gallons and the other says seven gallons. Using only those two containers, how can you measure exactly two gallons of water?

And you have unlimited water. I mean, you've got a well there, right? Well, no one else knows that you've got these two containers. They're at the well. You just scratch off the thing that says seven gallons. You're right on it two gallons and you fill it to the time. I like it. I said, wow.

How's he going to know? Well, here's how I would do it. Yeah. You take the seven gallon container and you fill it up and you pour the contents of it into the 13 gallon. And then you do that again. Sure. And when you do that, it's not all going to fit. It's not all going to fit.

You'll have filled the 13 gallon container and you will have one gallon left over in the seven gallon container. Right. You put that aside, as they say in, looking reserve reserve you pour out the 13 gallon container or better than that you pour back into the well pour it back into the well yeah conserve so now you have one gallon in the seven gallon container and the 13 gallon container is empty mm-hmm you then take that one gallon and you pour it into the 13 gallon container got it yeah leaving room for 12 more gallons right you then fill the seven gallon container

again mm-hmm and pour the entire seven gallons into the 13 Now you're up to eight in that. Now you're up to eight gallons. And you say, hmm, eight, how many, room for how many more? Five. You then fill the seven gallon container a third or fifth or ninth time, whatever it takes. And you pour all but two gallons in because five from seven is two. There's only room for five in the 13 gallon container.

And you'll have two gallons left. The two gallons left. And if you don't trip and fall on the way back to the cabin, you'll have exactly two. They'll be able to make the pancakes. And who's our winner, That's good. The winner is Boardman Lloyd. Yes, Boardman is his first name. In fact, he signed his postcard, Borty. And he's from our very own fair city, Cambridge, Massachusetts. No kidding. Yeah. And for having his answer selected at random and from among all the correct answers,

Borty is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Cotalk's Shameless Commerce Division. Perhaps he could use it to get our puzzle book, and then he wouldn't be a bored man anymore. Anyway, we will have a new long-winded. Oh, I love those. Intriguing. Well, the long-winded ones are good because they allow for a lot of obfuscation. Yeah, and out-and-out lying. Oh, great.

Anyway, that puzzle will be coming up in the third half of today's show, so stay tuned for that. Hey, do you know what it's time for? Time to convert our Y2K shelter into a giant humidor? Oh, no, no. It's time to play Stump the Chops! Stump to Chops is that part of the show. where we dip into our recent past to find out whether the advice we gave out on the previous show was helpful or actionable. Well, who's our plaintiff? I mean, who's our player this week?

It's Nereff from Washington, D.C. D.C.? Oh, no, he's probably a lawyer with the FCC. No, he's a frat boy from Georgetown. But I scared you, didn't I? Oh, yeah, now I remember. You know, first time in my life I got a new car. New! I saw myself 1999 Jeep Wrangler this year with a soft top. Uh-huh.

And, you know, not realizing that those tops have to go up when it rains. And so I left it down. It rained one night. And when I came out the next morning, I look at my car in the hoods up. So I go over there, and my neighbors sort of looking at me with this skulls, about eight in the morning. He says, you know, your horn was going off about five in the morning? Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah.

And then he says, oh, then I look at him. I said, did you do this? No, no, it wasn't me. Right. Yeah, right. So, ever since then, my horn hasn't worked, and I clearly think this is a case of car sabotaged. Yeah, no, it wasn't an accident to hear it.

He knows. Just say, all right, I give up. Sometimes you have to just confront. Play stupid. So you're not going to believe this. I don't understand it. Somebody must have opened my hood, and they did something to my horn. Oh, that's good.

That's good. Yeah. You know anything about cars? Would you take a look? Right, and stand back in case he slams the door in your face. You don't want to get a broken nose out of this. Well, at least we're restricting our advice of stuff we know about, playing dumb.

Actually, we had a pretty good shot here. I mean, the horn system? I mean, how confusing is that? We asked him if there were any cut of broken wires. He said they didn't see any, so we said it had to be the fuse or the relay. Well, let's find out. Nareef, are you there?

Yeah, I'm there, guys. Well, before we ask you about your hospital stay, we need to verify that the answer you're about to give here today on Stump the Chumps has not been influenced by our staff, the staff of National Public Radio, or the Washington, D.C. Neighborhood Association's war crimes tribunal. Is that true? Well, that's true. No one's told me what to say, but then again, I am in D.C. and I don't know if promises go a long way. There you don't. No, and the whole thing's being recorded anyway. So how did you make out with the Clopex next door there? Well, I'll tell you,

you know, I didn't really have to play dumb. I just kind of fell into the dumb role. For some of us, it comes very, very easy. Yeah. I tried your advice, and I went to the guy, and I asked him if he knew anything about cars because I'd always see him walking around. And sure enough, you know, he was really nice about it, and came over and started plugging away at those fuses. He just pulled them all out and looked at all of them, see if any of them were broken, and sure enough, one was busted.

But wait! Wait a minute, he didn't say yet that it fixed the horn. But wait, you're right, there's more to it. Of course there is. We knew it. He, we had extra fuses, changed it, and it still didn't work, so I was confused. I was really confused, and I kept kind of asking if he had done anything, and he said, no, I hadn't,

and he was really honest about it, so he told me to go to the dealership and have them look at it. Well, when I went in, the dealer asked me what I had been doing in my car, because it's a 99. It doesn't really look like a 99 any longer, and he figured out that I had been driving it in the wrong places. See, I like to take it out in that Shenandoor River every now and again. Oh, you didn't tell us this. So anyway, the guy figured it out, and he realized that I had just broken it. the horn entirely by having so much water. The horn was just all rusted.

Yeah. Yeah, they have, what do they call them? Boats. There you go. They have vehicles for water travel. I don't know if we're right or wrong here. I said it was something simple, but I don't think we can take credit for this. Well, because you withheld information.

On the other hand, it's our job to draw out the correct information like, What simple questions like do you drive in the river often? And we didn't say that, so I think we lose on this one. No, no, I'm going to give up. I didn't get partial credit. What do you think? No, I think you definitely. Well, I don't want any credit that we don't deserve.

Well, here's the deal. I would have never gone to my neighbor if you guys hadn't really put me up to it. Yeah, that was a pretty, yeah. In fact, now he's exonerated, obviously. Absolutely. Yeah, nice guy. And we even invited him over for barbecue one day after this. Oh, isn't that nice?

We still don't know who opened your hood. Well, I think it was him. I think so, too. How many people could it be? Good luck. Well, thanks. And thanks for playing Stump the Chumps. Thank you.

Take care, guys. Bye, bye. All right, folks, if you hear someone on the show that you would like us to bring back for Stumpter Chumps, you got two options. Email us your suggestion from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. Or don't email us and spare us the humiliation. In the meantime, if you want to talk to us, the number is 1-88-car talk. That's 88822-2-8-2-8-5. Hello, you're on Carat Talk.

Hi, this is Sarah Jane from Boulder, Colorado. Hi, Sarah, is there an H at the end of your name? No, there is a hyphen. Oh, my God. Really? Yes. Between the Sarah and the Jane? Not even Sarah Lee has a hyphen.

Not even Sarah Lee has a... Exactly right. Sarah Jane. Yes. I like it. And did you have a hyphenated last name, too? No. Like McDonald-Douglas?

No. No. Liggett Myers. Wow, where are you from, Sarah, Jane? Boulder, Colorado. Got it. Okay. So what's up?

Well, I have a very simple general maintenance question. Mm-hmm. I have a 1992 Subaru Legacy wagon that only has 90,000 miles on it, and the owner's manual says that I should change the oil every 3,000 miles or three months, and I've heard you guys say that 5,000 miles is fine. but I don't drive a thousand miles in a month. So for me to change it every 5,000 miles would be every six months. Perfectly adequate.

Okay, so that's good enough. Perfectly fine. Great. Next question. I normally use the middle grade gas, which out here is 87 octane. We have 85, 8791. But these big box discount stores that sell gas, they sell only the lowest octane. and the highest octane, but the highest octane is usually cheaper than getting the middle octane anyplace else.

But I can't always get there. Can I get 87 octane when it's convenient and get the cheaper 91 octane? You should use the cheapest stuff all the time. In fact, they had 75 you should get. But my question is, can I switch between octanes? Oh, yeah. We won't tell. You can switch.

You can mix and match. You can do anything you want. So it won't make my car sick. I mean, that legacy, you can switch. probably asks for 87. It does. Is that right? Yes. Oh. But if it's cheaper to get 91... No. Well, if it's cheaper to get 91 than 87, it won't hurt, but it's cheaper to get 85 at that place. Yes, it is. And that's the cheapest alternative. Yeah, but I'm supposed to get 87.

Well, you're supposed to get 87, except that's the number recommended for the rest of the world, but not for your altitude. You can use 85 because it's the equivalent of 87 because you live. in Boulder. Yeah, but they recommend 89. So when I use 87, here it's like an 89 anyplace else. Well, you said they recommended 87. Well, I was, I was adjusting for altitude. Oh, you already did that. Yeah. So we adjusted two. We adjusted. Right. You get down to 85. Right. So you should, you should use 87. Right. But if I sometimes use 91 because of the financial consideration. Sure, that's fine. That's okay. That's fine. Yeah. You could, you could, you could, you could, Always use a higher octane.

All you'll do is waste money. But here I won't. But here you won't. But you should never use a lower octane than they recommend. Because your altitude is much higher than sea level, which yours is. Well, you've got the perfect opportunity here. Yeah. When you go to the cheap old place, you get half 85 and half 91.

The average of which is what? 87. 88. Exactly. Wait a second. It's 88. I was adjusting for altitude. And 88 would be good.

Maybe it would be fine. And it would probably, that would be much cheaper even than buying the 87, right? And at the other place. So that would, you can do exactly that. Really? Oh, yeah. And it'll come out to be right in the middle. That's how they do it.

Oh, my God. Oh, this is terrific. Hey, Sarah Jane. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you, guys. It's been a lot of fun. Good luck up there in Boulder. Thank you.

Bye-bye. All right, look, it's time to take a short break. Yeah, and when we come back, my brother will either read from the Talmud or present this week's puzzle. We're back listening to Car Talk with us, click and collect the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzler, and as promised.

Oh, yeah, long-winded, un-fuscated. I'll try to make it as short and sweet as possible. Okay, man. Yeah, go ahead. We have a friend, Tommy and I, who shall remain nameless, who works in a government facility, and does very important work. Yes. Very important work.

And one day he's at his desk working away, reading some very technical manual. You call that work reading a technical manual. Oh, indeed. Yeah. When he's awakened, I mean startled by the sound of his stomach growling. Yeah. He turns in his seat and looks at the electric clock on the wall behind. And this is one of these clocks that's been there for like a thousand.

thousand years plugs into the wall. Big analog round thing. Big, right. Says IBM on it. Or something like that. Yeah. Or Simplex. Who made all those clocks?

IBM. IBM made all those clocks. I don't know. They made a lot of them. He looks at the clock and he's, and as he turns back to his work, he says, well, it's obviously too early to eat lunch. Mm-hmm. I must have forgotten to eat breakfast.

Mm-hmm. He begins to work. A short time later, he's, again awake, I startled by the growling of his stomach. And this time he turns to look at the clock another time. You with me so far? I love it so far. Well, see if you'll love it in the morning. Yeah. He looks at the clock another time. Yeah. And he notices that it first of all says a time later than what it did the first time he looked at it. The arrow of time. Right? Yeah. The march of time. The second hand is sweeping.

the hour hand is moved from where it was the last time he looked at it, and the minute hand is in a different position. And as he turns back to his desk, again thinking that he must have forgotten he eat breakfast and he doesn't know how he's going to make it until lunchtime, his stomach growls a third time, and he says, the clock is broken. And yet everything seemed to be working. Yeah, I had mentioned. The hands are moving.

Yeah. Now, I may have to give a hint. The question is, how did he know the clock was working? broken, that's the question. Well, the minute hand, the second hand, and the hour hand have all moved, you said. Yeah. But probably not in the right relationship. Yeah. The two hands are exactly 180 degrees apart, like they would be at 6 o'clock. That's the hint I was going to give. Now, if you think you know the answer, write that answer on the back of a $20 bill or a can of anchovies. Open or closed? Either. And send it to two,

Musler Tower, Car Talk Plaza. Actually, sardines. I like sardines better. Smoked sardines. Oh. Car talk plaza. Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City.

Matt 02238. Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section ofcars.com. If you'd like to call us, the number is 1-888-8-8-2-57-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Nancy from Scottsdale. Hi, Nancy, from Scottsdale. Scottsdale, that's in Arizona. Yes, it is.

A-Z. Yes. What's up, Nancy? Are you retired? No, I'm certainly not. Hasn't everyone in Scottsdale retired? No. No?

Is the average age over 75? Gosh, I hope not. I better go look in the mirror. Well, it's the image I have of Scottsdale. A bunch of octogenarians roaming around in 83 Buick centuries. Oh, boy. Boy, you're right on target for some areas. And you can't see their heads.

You can't. Yeah, they don't have heads. So what's up, Nancy? Well, I have a problem with the electrical harness in my 94 Dodge Dakota pickup. Uh-oh. I have had problems with pack rats getting on the engine block and building nests. Uh-huh. And then all of a sudden my airbag lights stayed on and it won't go off.

And I found on the floor a bunch of little chute-up pieces of carpet and three little one-inch pieces of wire. Oh. A pink one, a lavender one, and a blue one. Let me pull out my wiring diagram here. And I'm just, I don't know if my airbag's going to pay me an unexpected visit one day, or if it's just dead, and that's why the lights on. Well, you know now that the light is on that the airbag will not deploy if you have a crash.

Oh. Yeah. You know that. Yeah. So, I mean, that's the real issue. Uh-huh. I mean, it may deploy. It's unlikely that it will deploy when you don't have a crash, but it's not impossible. Oh, no. It's... We don't know what the little Micey's eight. Well, I can only find three little pieces of wire.

Yeah. So you know what you have to do. I mean, you've got to go to the dealer. Uh-huh. Evil as that may sound. And if, in fact, they strip the insulation off the airbag wires, it's possible that if they touch together... It could blow in your kiss. How did they get in your car in the first place? Well, the gasket on one of the holes that goes through the firewall has slipped off towards the engine, and so the holes wide open, the hotel's ready for them.

Really? And they can fit? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They can get in anywhere. Nancy, you've got to go to the deal. You've got to get it fixed because, I mean, you don't want either of these conditions. You don't want the thing to go off if you don't have an accident because then you will have an accident.

Yeah. And you don't want it to not go off if you do have an accident because then you'll be dead. And I won't like that. I don't think right now. I'll never speak to your account. That's sure. And you'll never get a chance to drive around in an 83 Buick century in Scottsdale. No, you've got to go and have them look at it.

It's not going to be easy, but they're going to have it. No, it might be a cheap fix. Yeah, I mean, if they find why, I think it's going to be obvious. They're going to find missing wires, and they're going to just. splice in a new piece. Oh, I hope so. And they'll seal everything up so the mice will stay somewhere out of the truck. But unfortunately, they'll do their damage under the hood.

You need to find some deterrent. You need a cat. The best deterrent now is to leave your hood open. And then it's bright, so they won't go in there. Oh, there you go. Oh, is that how you do it? Yeah. Makes driving challenging.

Maybe you can put some plexiglass right there and leave it open all the time. Good luck, Nancy. Okay. Thank you. See you later. Good luck. Bye, bye. 1-8-88-Cart Talk.

That's 888-227-8-255. A lawyer on Car Talk. Hi, it's June from Birmingham, Alabama. June. How are you? Just great. Now, you see, you don't hear that. I have one customer whose name is June.

I like that name. June is a nice name. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. It's sort of sophisticated and yet simple. My mother will thank you. Reminds me of the time I would.

was in this really snotty French restaurant and the waiter was explaining the paté of the day and we asked him, well, what is it? He said, well, it's a country paté. And I said, yeah, what does that mean?

He said, well, I would say that it's rather coarse. And then without missing a beat, he says, but not unsophisticated. I almost kicked them. Yeah. event. Hi, June. How are you? Good. What's up? I have a 96 Jeep Cherokee. It has four-wheel drive. I bought it because I love wildflowers and hiking and ferns and all of that. I'm an outdoor

person, and I got it so I could go out in the woods looking for things. And drive over tree stumps and across little streams and whatever, sure. It's very rugged. The office building where I work has just installed these obnoxious, annoying speedbreakers in the parking lot. They are very tall. They are diagonal to the road. They're humps. They're humps. They're awful.

And since I have this rugged Jeep, do I have to stop? Can I just roll right over them? Well, the fact that you have this sort of all-terrain vehicle makes the suspension such that when you hit a good bump, you go bouncing all around and that thing just goes bonkeys, right? Right. And that's because it's going to do that when you're driving over the tree stumps and you don't want to make sure that it's high enough off the ground that the tree stumps don't rip everything out. So you do whatever you want.

The answer is how much can you take? Yeah. You won't be hurting it if you drive fast over this bump. Well, you will be. I mean, you'll be pushing the steering and the suspension to its limits. Well, but I think you'll hit your limit long before. you hit the vehicle's limit. I mean, she'll be bouncing off the walls of this thing.

I mean, if you hit that thing doing 15 miles an hour, you'll go out the sunroof if you have one. You chip one tooth, and you'll stop this. Yeah, so, I mean, you're going to do more harm to yourself than to the vehicle. But that wasn't your question. Why did they put in these speed bumps? It's somebody...

To slow down, wackos like June, who want to go speeding around the parking lot. Maybe just for you. Well, there used to be a way you could go in the back way, but they figured that out and put the speed bumps there too. Now, when you drive through the woods in pursuit of your wildflowers, do you drive at 45 miles an hour or do you slow down at two miles an hour?

Oh, no, because I'm looking. She's looking. Yeah, she's going slowly. You're trying to tell me that you're that anxious to get to work, that you don't want to slow down going into the parking lot, that you can't wait to get to work? The speed bumps run the way out of the parking lot. No, they're both ways. Yeah, they are.

Good point. No, I would slow right down and we'll crawl and start. Smell those roses on the way to work. And why don't you want to do that, June? Because it's just wasted time when I could be doing something else. But that's sort of like what the malady or the malaise of the millennium has been. The fact that everyone is afraid to waste a minute. That's why people are talking on their cell phones, combing their hair while they drive,

eating while they drive. They call it multitasking. I'm committed to monotasking. Morontasking is good. Yeah, I mean, why is it that everyone thinks they've got to be doing something and they've got to be doing it faster and faster and faster and faster. Because everyone's ahead. What's going? What's going?

What's going? What's going? But don't they realize that up ahead ain't any better than it is right here? Didn't they be here now? Up ahead is crowded because everyone's up there. Stay back. Yeah, no, I think, I don't know what to do about it, but it seems to me that people have gone wacky. People have gone wacky.

But you sound, I guess the reason I'm surprised at this, is June sounds like a very laid-back patient kind of person. She goes and looks at wildflowers. No, that's the soothe the savage beast in her. Well, also I'm a stockbroker. See that? Oh. That explains a lot.

Yeah, okay. That does explain most everything. Yeah, you got any tips for us? Should we sell our tech stocks? Well, June, I don't know what to tell you, but try to. slow down, you'll live longer. Thank you. See you later.

Bye-bye. Boy, I can't believe that she, with a voice like she had, that she was one of those go-go-go-go people. Yeah, no, she's anxious to get to work. I wish I were that anxious to get to work. They can't drag me to work. While you've wasted another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk, our esteemed producer

is Doug Punkin-Lips Berman. Yeah. Our associate producers are... Producers. Ken the Diaper Slayer Rogers. Yeah. Frouca, Catherine Fenelosa, and Louis Cronin, the barbarian. Our engineer is Dennis DeMennis Foley, our senior webb lackey is Doug Sheep Boy Mayor and our technical spiritual and menu advisor.

Out on the midwinter pro-am free lunch tour promoting St. Bugsy's Wart, I might add, is John Bugsy Lawler. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Merkey Research, assisted by statistician Margin Over. Our official football widow is Eliza the Couch. Our pseudonym consultant is Norm De Plume. Our assistant director of strategic planning is Kent C. Detreys. Kent C. Detreys. The head of our... Wait a minute. K. Sarah had that, y'all.

Oh, he's the assistant. Assistant. Pay attention. We're loaded with assistants. The head of our division of threat assessment is U.N. What Army? Our director of luxury car horns is Tony Blair. Our car stereo installer is Carlos Antenna. And our new Russian chauffeur is pickoff and drop off. I like it.

Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheathamon-Hau is U. Lewis Dewey, known to the Penguins in Harvard Square as Ui-Louie Dewey. Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clack to Tapper Brothers, and don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother.

We'll be back next week. We hope. Bye-bye. And now, in a surprise visit, here is Contauk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vincent K. K. Bumbats. Vincent.

Thank you very much. I come in the back way now. If you just want to copy this here show, which is number 0-004, just pick up your phone and call this number 1888 Card Junk. And what if I wanted some other Car Talk stuff, you know, like a Cart Talk Puzzler book. Would I call that same number, Vincent? No, you tiptoe through the tulips, you dope.

Of course you called the same number. You called the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Carjunk or visit it online at the Card Talk section of Cars.com. Thank you, Vinny. That was quite concise. A concise this, will you? Car Talk is a production of Dewee Cheatham and Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though Carl Castle sends his resume to MTV, whatever he hears us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.