My sister wittily posted on FaceBook a pretend quote of a popular-in-the-US deity: “I never said that” (or words to that effect).

This summer, I was in Missisippi in the time-frame when the Supreme Court had just legalized gay marriage, and I had a hard time reconciling the mellow and benevolent style  of Jesus (as I understand it) to the hateful stuff being said, supposedly in Jesus’s name.

If we could email our deities and get a personalized reply as to the recommended course of action in a given situation, it’d save a lot of bloodshed. A non-believer could still choose to disagree with the deity’s take on things but at least the believers would finally be on the same page.

In automotive transmission culture, the company called ZF is about as close to a deity as it gets. They create amazing and complex stuff out of almost nothing, and they are huge, and they seem almost all-powerful. They are good and wise.

I’ve been a believer in ZF for many happy years now, specifically due to my favorite BMW transmission having been made by ZF.

So now I own a 2000 Audi A6 with the 4.2 engine, and the ZF 5HP-24A transmission. It seems to have a transmission problem, which might or might not actually be caused by the transmission. I bought my mom such an Audi for her birthday too, this summer, and the car also has this issue. On each car I knew this when I bought the car, and the super-low price reflected it.

But, it’d be nice to have both cars working. I don’t have the budget to go spend thousands of dollars on the locally recommended solution, which is to buy a local rebuild and have it installed locally. Besides, I like solving puzzles, and this is a puzzle that’s perplexed me since June, i.e., for five months now, as I tried to figure out what the right thing is to do.

So, I wrote to the deity, last night, and described the situation, and asked for guidance. And guess what? ZF replied!!!

In truly wise fashion, they didn’t as yet throw suggestions at me but instead asked me intelligent questions to help pinpoint the problem. I’m so delighted to be able to converse with them directly!