Secret men's rituals.

"I think it's coming from under the plasticky bit, Sharon..."

Summertime in Australia means road trips. With the family. For some families, this means standing for hours, in the baking heat, on the side of the road. Today I drove past two cars with their bonnets up, their engine bays quietly digesting fat white blokes, headfirst.

The breakdown is a classic example of anthropological ritual. Most cars on the road in Australia were built after 1995. This means they have anywhere between 20 and 60 sensors that control their operation. Further, every component is engineered with one zillimeter's clearance between the next one. Modern cars are TIGHT. Then, the entire block and transmission is shrink wrapped in thick black plastic. Modern engines are a secret world. Their only ingress is a hole for the petrol, oil and water, and even then, they can be tricky to find. (Tip, always check the glovebox for release buttons: engineers are twisted bastards)

And yet, despite the impermeability of today's modern engine, almost all men conform to a comforting ritual when faced with a breakdown. They get out, pop the bonnet and have a 'bit of a poke around in there'. What ARE they looking at?

"Yep, Sharon. The engine's definitely still in there...so, well...ah...it's not that then..hmmm"

Once you've checked to make sure the battery terminals are still connected, there's precious little you can do.

And yet, there they stand, like conquering heroes, peering under the bonnet, while their wives wander aimlessly beside the road and wait for assistance.

I can only imagine this Bonnet-sweat ritual is a hangover from the days when men could, in fact, pull over and fix the car. Before 1990, there was a fighting chance that your ignition system was mechanically operated by your engine. A Hall effect or transistor assisted ignition was as close as you got to electronics. A man could search for the bit where the turny turny stopped making the sparky sparky, sometimes even testing the leads on the block, producing entertaining fireworks for the children. What fun!

Nowadays, the sparky sparky is controlled from a computer, which uses millions of sensors, that test everything including your manifold air pressure, camshaft position and even the amount oxygen in the exhaust, amongst ten million other things. If your car stops, and there's no steam, or fire, there's no smell of barbequed roo, and you don't appear to have water outside the windows, then it's pretty safe to assume that the only thing you can fix is the radio station. If you have ACC power.

Stand there and wait for the NRMA. And when they get there, don't say; "Yeah, mate. I reckon it's the valve shims. They've been waiting to go".