THE BEAST

The Beast, my name for my van, has a leak in the power steering system. This means that periodically I have to add power steering fluid to the reservoir. Well, last night on the way home it started whining, which means it needed more fluid. I pulled over into a wide-open parking lot at a Catholic church to take care of the problem. I left the van running and added some fluid. I started to check the level in the reservoir and dropped the dip stick. It fell into the engine compartment. Luckily it did not get into the serpentine belt and pulleys but it also did not fall through onto the ground. After shutting off the engine I started looking around with a light to find it. I found it down towards the bottom of the engine compartment. It was too far away to reach, so I was going to have to crawl under the van to retrieve it. I trained the light on the area where it was so I would know where to "look". I crawled under, avoiding all the hot engine parts, and started feeling around for it. Could not find it. Crawled out from under the van. Checked on the location, found some "landmarks" and crawled under again. I found it using the landmarks. I finished filling the reservoir without dropping the dip stick again. The shirt I was wearing is now in the laundry. Luckily, it is only dirt from the parking lot that is on the back of it and no oil. I really need to get the leak fixed so I don't have to worry about low fluid levels in the power steering. I will, I just have to figure out when.