1.7K views Mar 2010
Jim Halpert recounts borrowing a friend's failing Honda, dropping its transmission, and riding with a mechanic who speeds back to the car using nitrous.
0:00 Yeah, one time my car broke down. That's a good way to start a short story or short film about this. 0:08 Um, no, I was a, I was actually a basketball coach, uh, when I was in college. 0:12 I'd, I'd coach basketball, uh, after school. After school. Um, so I asked my friend to borrow his car, and he had an old Honda Accord, which I love, but it was like old, and it was, 0:23 it was like one of those dogs that walked by like shifty, and you're like, we sh- somebody should put that down now. 0:28 So I asked him for the car, and every time I asked him for the car, he was like, ugh, just knowing full well that it was on its last legs. 0:34 So I was like, dude, no, I take really good ca- care of it. My brother has a Honda Accord. 0:38 He doesn't. And um, so I take it to practice. We have a great practice, my friend and I, and then we uh, we drive to Friendly's because in New England, that's the only place you grab some eats. 0:50 So we grabbed Friendly's, had a great time, got a cone head with the Reese's Pieces, and I'm very happy. 0:56 And then we walk, I just hit reverse, pull out into the parking lot, throw it into drive, and as I'm throwing it into drive, it's just like metal ripping, and then all of a sudden just like boom out the bottom of the car, 1:09 just pieces everywhere. I see it hitting other cars. I see things that look really important out of the periphery, and I just, I just turned to him and I was like, I don't know what that was, 1:20 but it didn't sound good. It didn't sound good. And he's like, yeah, no, we should really do something. 1:27 And we're talking about, if you've had your car stall, this car was dead. 1:30 There was no electricity, no moving, no, there was dead silence. 1:35 We had created a bubble of dead silence. So we go, uh, down the street and we find a gas station. 1:40 We go into the guy and we said, this is kind of a problem. Um, I think I may have, maybe, dropped my friend's transmission in the parking lot of Friendly's. 1:50 And this guy, being a New Englander, had the best accent ever, and he was like, oh, you dropped your transmission? 1:55 Oh yeah, that's no, that's not a big deal. That's really not a big deal. 1:58 How far down the road is it, though? Yeah? It's only about a quarter mile, sir. 2:02 It's like Friendly's, it's like right there. Meanwhile, it's like Friendly's, Vinny Testa's, Outback Chili's. 2:08 It's like all these family restaurants in a row, and he's like, yeah, no problem. 2:11 Let's go take a look at it. Just hop in my car. So we get in the car, and uh, it's a T-Bird or some other sort of sporty car, and I look back at Will, my friend, and I'm like, this is great, 2:22 and he goes, except for the back. And I said, what? And he's like, there's no seat belt. 2:27 And I was like, oh dude, come on, we're going a quarter mile down the road. 2:29 He goes, yeah, but there's no seats. There's no back seat for the seat belt. 2:35 And I was like a little nervous for him, but still thinking, sit on metal, the tires, he can like see the tires. 2:42 And then I'm thinking, why are the seats missing? And um, sure enough, as I'm thinking that, John, we had the same name, we were connected. 2:51 He's like, oh yeah, this uh, you ever watch racing? You ever watch NASCAR? 2:55 And I was like, no. He's like, yeah, you know what nitrous is? 2:57 I got nitrous in the back trunk of the uh, of the car. And I was like, you have nitrous, like, boosters? 3:03 Quoting, like, video games. I was like, you have nitrous boosters? 3:06 And he's like, yeah, something like that. Hey, you want to see how fast this thing can go? 3:10 You want to see how fast this car can go? And I was like, no, I do not. 3:14 We are already at the stoplight. I can see Friendly's. I can read the menu. 3:18 It's so close. And he's just like, yeah, let's do it, let's do it. 3:21 And Will's like, no, no, no seat belt, no seats. And I was like, nah, let's, I really don't want to do, I really don't want to do this. 3:29 So he just hits it in drive, does something to the thing, and I swear to God, you hear an explosion, but it's a cold explosion. 3:35 And we fly down the street. I'm in like total G thing. There are caravans of children and like soccer moms getting out of the way, ducking into Chili's. 3:46 They thought they were going to Outback, but they had to bail early. 3:49 Like just cars flying out of our way, just like a video game. 3:51 We're flying down the street. I'm pretty sure the back of our car is on fire, and he just bangs it into Friendly's. 3:58 We're in now in the Friendly's parking lot. He's like, which one's your car? 4:00 Which one's your car? I look over at the speedometer in the Friendly's parking lot, we're doing 110. 4:05 I'm like, right there, right? Right there. And we spin out into maybe 6 rotations and pull up right next to the car, and he's like, yeah. 4:14 It was pretty awesome, right? Will passed out, I think dead. 4:19 And I turned to him and I was like, yeah, that was cool. We don't need to do that ever, ever again. 4:25 And he's like, yeah, funny story though. I can go faster because the other day I was pulled over for doing 185. 4:32 Yeah, and the state trooper came up to me, he goes, you know, you have any idea how fast you were going? 4:36 I said, I don't, man, I don't. He goes, you were going 185, right? 4:40 And then I turned to him, I said, that's impossible because this thing doesn't go any f- any faster than like 95, you pig. 4:46 Don't call cops pigs. And he's like, actually, John, you're lying because I just saw you at the Sea Kok Speedway, and that thing got 217. 4:54 So he had seen my car, and he knew that I could do 217 in the car, and my mind is now thinking. 5:00 This car can go at 217, and at 110, I was pretty sure that I was dead and had reviewed a lot of memories and, uh, pretty excited about some of them, but kind of wanted some more. 5:12 It was one of the more frightening experiences I've ever been a part of. 5:16 Long story short, we get back to the, uh, or long story long, we get back to the, um, garage. 5:22 Turns out the transmission is dropped. He's like, two ways to go about this. 5:27 It's going to cost you like 2500 dollars to replace the transmission. 5:29 And I was like, yeah, that is awful. And he's like, or I could do it for like 300 dollars. 5:34 And I was like, and how can you do that for 300 dollars? He's like, yeah, you know, you just jury rig it, you know, with like a paper clip and a rubber band. 5:41 I was like, yeah, paper clip and rubber band, MacGyver. And he's like, yeah, dead serious. 5:46 And I was like, you you're going to put the car back together with a rubber band and a paper clip? 5:51 And he's like, something like that. Well, you know, we got some stuff. 5:53 We're just gonna, we'll we'll put it together. We opt for the 300 dollar, the 300 dollar move, and it worked fine until, uh, Berant sold it 2 days later. 6:03 He was like, oh, it's on a rubber band and a paperclip, let's shove that out to, uh, pasture, and we sold it. 6:09 And then, uh, we found out as we were leaving that John also dealt drugs. 6:15 Not kidding. You guys have been great. Excellent. I'll take a look at this car. 6:19 You come back and pick it up in a day or so. Hey, you guys smoke weed? 6:23 And I was like, um, no, no, we don't. We do not smoke weed. 6:28 Uh, we don't race. 6:31 We don't fix cars, and we don't smoke weed, John. And he's like, oh, all right, well, then you just, uh, you keep all your, uh, smarty college friends. 6:39 You tell them if they need weed, they come over here to John. 6:41 I was like, they're probably not going to come to an auto station to buy weed from a man who has nitrous in the back. 6:47 I'll tell him. Okay, I'll tell him. Thank you. And we left, and and and all was, uh, forgiven, as they say. 
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