A “cripple” mayhap?

—My cousin David reports via Facebook he is at a Toyota dealership in Springfield VA.
“And I guess we’ll be here a while,” he remarked in a comment he later hid.
Dave is the only child of my father’s younger brother Robert (“Rob”).
My Uncle-Rob once told me anyone named Robert was automatically Of-the-Devil. His father’s name was Robert, his name was Robert, and of course my name is Robert.
“A cripple mayhap?” I thought to myself.
Reminds of a trip my wife and I took long ago with our first Irish-Setter “Casey.”
Our car was a 1978 Rabbit purchased used; it had non-factory accessory air-conditioning.
The trip was from our home in Rochester (NY) to my wife’s parents’ home near De Land FL.
We’d take “scenic” routes along the Atlantic coast, and visit Saluda grade, a railfan pilgrimage stop. (I’m a railfan.)
Saluda is the steepest mainline railroad grade in our country: 4.24/4.9%. (That’s 4.24/4.9 feet up for every 100 feet forward; go beyond that and you need cog railway — the drive-wheels won’t hold the rail, they’ll slip.)
Freight-trains had to be tripled to climb Saluda — that’s divide a train into three sections.
Descending safely was also a challenge. There are runaway tracks, and a train had to maintain 8 mph to switch past a runaway track. (And of course there have been runaways.)
Saluda is now closed. I think the track is still there, but it’s no longer operated.
Saluda grade could be deadly. A cheap shot: just run the railroad right up the side of the mountain = no loops, no switchbacks. Then hope for the best!
We stopped in the town of Saluda at the top of the grade. The grade dropped off just like a roller-coaster.
Volkswagen designed a flaw into anything with a transverse engine, and Rabbits used a transverse engine.
Motoring near Saluda our Rabbit died. It wouldn’t even crank. Obviously our battery was dead.
A friendly Volkswagen-owner stopped and jumpstarted our car; apparently there was enough to run our car, but not crank it.
Meanwhile my poor wife was parrying a railfan hot to find Saluda. I was so obsessed I hardly noticed the dead battery. Plus Casey got into tar — it was in her coat. “Gotta find Saluda!”
And of course finding it was nearly impossible = driving all-over-creation in mountainous woods, with a nearly dead battery.
A gas station quick-charged the battery, so we found Saluda, and also found a Motor Lodge in nearby Spartanburg.
Fingers crossed, we hoped the battery would get us to the Volkswagen dealer in Spartanburg.
It did. 170 buckaroos to replace a suspect alternator.
Fiddlesticks! That alternator was probably fine.
Years later I had a 1983 Rabbit GTI. Suddenly it wouldn’t crank!
I got my various testers out, and determined that alternator was charging fine.
But its output wasn’t making it to the battery.
I thereupon wired my own workaround, such that now the alternator was charging the battery.
I poked around and noticed the charging lead was soaked. That alternator was charging everything but the battery.
How many Rabbits, Jettas, and Sciroccos did I see behind tow-trucks? (They all had the transverse motor.) A wonderful way to sell Bosch alternators ($$$$).
I helped a guy with a Scirocco once = dead battery.
“I bet your charging lead is shorting out. Tell that to your mechanic!”

• “Cripple” is bus-lingo. If a bus won’t operate, it’s “crippled.” I drove transit bus 16&1/2 years.