What I know about cars, or rather what I don't know, is embarrassing. Most of the time I can blissfully get by without everyone being aware of my ignorance, but when a car breaks down, mine or someone else's, I fret over being exposed as the primitive neanderthal I am. Such was the case yesterday when my car decided to go gently into that good night at the corner of a busy intersection. It literally died completely, not even allowing me to put it into neutral to push it to safety.

Good Samaritan Number One arrives and says "hey, you need a push?" I respond, "I can't get my car into neutral." He then asks me for the keys, sensing my mental incapability, and is surprised to find that the car won't shift into neutral. "It won't go into neutral," he discovers. Then, Good Samaritan Number Two comes on the scene, a dude that looks like Lou Ferrigno who no doubt drives around looking for cars to push. "Need a push?" he excitedly asks, to which I tell him it won't go into neutral. "Let me see the keys," he says before proceeding to arrive at the conclusion I'm telling the truth. Good Samaritan Number Three drives by in a pickup truck and she asks a similar question but is satisfied with my answer and continues driving.

The police officer arrives. "Let me help you push this out of the road," he says and I go into my stock answer, wondering if I should put a poster board sign together to avoid this back-and-forth. He asks for the keys and attempts to forcibly move the car into neutral, to no avail. The car will not go. Thankfully, we were able to move it to safety eventually by boosting it temporarily and then installing a new battery.

I don't know a whole lot about cars and it appears I'm not alone. I guess if we can't just get behind and push (which is actually kind of fun and could inspire catcalls), some of us are totally useless. Here's pretty much what I do:

• If I'm in a hurry and don't have time to stop, I say "bless 'em Jesus." Don't know where I picked that up, probably my grandmother, but it seems to make me feel a little bit better. You can't laugh or say "they had it coming," because you don't know when you'll be hit with that same problem.
• If I feel like I at least want to appear like I can help, I stop and say "what's the problem?" This is akin to asking someone who's lost something "where did you see it last?" It's a rhetorical question just meant to break the ice, really. Rarely does anything respond with anything meaningful and mostly exists to gently frustrate the stranded victim.
• I find it's also not nice to say "did you run out of gas?" I don't think anyone wants to admit that. In fact, if you see me walking on the side of the road and refusing help, it's because I don't want to admit it.
• If there's smoke, I keep driving and don't make eye contact and repeat said blessing. That's out of my realm of limited knowledge.
• If there are no visible signs of blood or a missing wheel or broken car parts, I ask them to pop the hood. Unless there's no engine at all, it's always smart-sounding to say "well, everything looks alright."
• Most of the time it's the battery so I go back to my car and get the jumper cables. I hook the red to the red and the black to the black. The officer confused me yesterday with an orange and black pair. I place them on both cars and rev up my engine a few times. Then I ask the driver to give it a crank.
• If it cranks, I have successfully faked them out and look like a bona-fide macho man mechanic.
• If it doesn't, then I throw around words like "alternator," "starter" and talk in circles. Sounding like a misunderstood eccentric is better than being exposed as an idiot.