Bewildered in a Bugatti
Ever show up to a car meet-up without your brass mallet? Probably not, unless you’re part of the American Bugatti Club. Members of this elite group frequently organize road rallies on various routes across the country. The only entry requirement is ownership of a Bugatti (no, replicas don’t count). Generously, any Bugatti will do. While a Chiron owner has no use for a brass mallet, someone driving a 1925 Bugatti Type 35A might employ one in their tool roll to keep their car running throughout the rally.
So, picture this: You’re motoring along in your RHD 1930 Type 51, when the sound of metal sliding against metal becomes metal grinding on metal. Panic sets in, and you realize you left your brass mallet – and tool roll – at home. You’re driving a seven-figure vintage French racecar, and you’re in the middle of nowhere. What do you do?
You can:
Keep driving. You only have a hundred miles to go, and maybe you’ll get lucky and the extra miles won’t turn a small issue into a five-figure repair bill, or an accident.
Pull over and fix it yourself. You don’t have the tools, and your experience is mainly in lawnmower repair, which is almost the same thing, right? Plus, you’re a smart person and can probably figure it out.
Ask Siri for directions to the nearest Jiffy Lube. This goes against both conventional wisdom and the advice of fellow club members, but you’ve also heard good things about choosing your own path, and maybe what’s right for them isn’t right for you. Jiffy Lube probably has a whole drawer of parts for your hand-built, supercharged, DOHC two-valve, 2.3-liter inline-8.
Leave the car and call your helicopter pilot. This problem wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t bought the Bugatti anyway, so it’s the car’s fault. It’s not fair. Maybe your neighbors and their Toyota Avalons have the right idea.
If you’re smart enough to pick “none of the above,” you can probably see how this applies to a normal person’s life. If you’ve ever sensed something wrong in your life – damage, doubt, dissent, or deviancy – and it’s bad enough to need some kind of action, you’ve probably selected your plan of attack. Sometimes it’s easier to see our flawed logic applied in someone else’s life, so, like the Bugatti owner, you have options:
Ignore it and hope it goes away
Dive in and assume you know how to fix it
Get help from an unreliable and unproven source
Give up on trying to fix it and settle for brokenness and escape, or finally,
None of the above. Just ask for help.
See where your brothers and sisters in Christ are in their journey, and talk about the places where your struggles and triumphs overlap. Listen to the wisdom from the experts – pastors, teachers, mentors, parents, authors and artists – and learn things you had never thought about trying. Learn from members of the faith no longer with us, whose examples in the Bible and throughout history have highlighted the common need for communal dependency, and the heartbreak found in case studies where it took tragedy, loss, and ruin to learn a lesson that could have been understood through a conversation with a friend.
As any owner will tell you, the low-end torque from one of these straight-8 brutes can overwhelm the skinny rear tires pretty quickly. You aren’t less of a Bugatti Club member if you’ve struggled with that. In fact, you only have a greater understanding of what it means to be part of the club. So, with humility and an open mind, reach out and wave down a buddy. Then, get back to the joy of the journey.
