I told my boss I had to leave work early today, because a plumber's coming to fix our hot water pipes, which are leaking somewhere inside the cinderblock wall. To partially make up for it, I would come in early and not take a lunch break.

So I dragged myself out of bed, got ready, got into the car, turned the ignition, and...

Nothing.

For the past couple of weeks, I'd noticed that I had to push the clutch in farther and farther in order to start the car. Today, I had it all the way down to the floor, but the ignition still wouldn't engage. I suspected that the clutch switch had worn out, or shifted positions until the clutch no longer closed the switch. Time to call AAA!

Oops. Our membership expired on August 1.

So, lacking anything beyond the basic automotive knowledge (my brother got the mechanic genes), I looked on the Internet for solutions. I came across an article from someone who was too lazy to push the clutch in when he started his car, so he shorted out the clutch switch and just put the car in neutral to start it. That sounded like a good temporary fix; the Honda Civic uses a modular plug to connect to the switch, so (according to this article) all I needed to do was pull out the plug, stick a wire in to connect the contacts, and tape it together to prevent it from falling out.

Easier said than done; the plug has two little catches, one on each side, which both need to be depressed in order to pull out the plug. But there was only enough room for me to depress one of the catches; I couldn't get enough leverage on the other side.

I considered simply cutting the wires and twisting them together, but it turned out that the switch wasn't actually the problem. Feeling around, I discovered that the top of the clutch lever had a little hole in it right where it made contact with the clutch switch. Broken bits of a little rubber plug lay on the floorboards beneath the clutch; apparently, years of driving finally tore the plug out of the hole. I duct-taped a penny over the hole, which got me in to work, and which should tide me over until I'm able to hit an auto parts store this evening.

In retrospect, it turned out to be a blessing that our AAA membership had expired. If I'd simply had the car towed in to a mechanic, who knows how much it would have cost to get a little rubber plug replaced?