The thingy on the thingy has major issues

While driving to the ball game yesterday (which we won, incidently. Go me!) MF and I were extremely pleased that the first major thing on our car broke, mid-drive. This is what is sounded like:

*SPRONG!*
*thudda thudda thudda thudda*
*eeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii*
*BONG!*
*chukka chukka thudda eeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii*

Being a girl, this is how I would have described it to the nearest over-priced authorized Chrysler dealership. Since I have been with MF though, I probably would have added that I thought it was the brakes, being that I was sitting in the back seat at the time it broke and it felt like I was riding on a Harley all the way to the field (a not so unpleasant sensation, actually).

Things astound me about MF all the time. After the game, we limped home while he answered all of my girl-driven questions, to which the answer was always "yes", such as:

"Are you sure we can drive with only three working brakes?"
"Are you sure that we can fix this ourselves?"
"Are you sure that we are not going to die in the process of getting home?"
"Are you sure this isn't going to cost me my life savings?"

He then proceeded to the nearest parts dealer, requested and purchased the correct parts, chastised the parts guy for giving him the incorrect size of drum even though the SKU was for our car (mislabelled), took the parts home, jacked up the car, took apart the wheel and went "A-ha!" and pulled a tangled piece of thingy out of the brake pad. He then proceeded to explain to me that the thingy is completely integral to the other thingy working, and that he'd have to replace the thingy with a new thingy in order for the secondary and tertiary thingies to function correctly.

Of course, he did explain it fully, and did not use the term "thingy". However, trying to explain cars to me is like trying to explain osmosis to a dog. I just blank out and start thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner (just like a dog). Anyhoo, he calls up another parts dealer and arranges to have a replacement thingy sent for today at noon.

It just boggles my mind how he knows to do all this. I watched one (and one only) episode of Life According to Jim, where the wife gets stuck in the garage and can't remember how to reset the garage door opener...and she concludes that it's just a guy thing when her four year old son manages to fix the unit. Not only would I have had no idea what the noise was, or how to fix it, but even if I got that far I would have ended up with the wrong size drum and missing a thingy. And therefore I would have had to explain to the parts dealer, over the phone no less, that I want a thingy. I think when it comes to men, I have chosen wisely.