Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Going Up The Mountain, Nissan Juke or Joke?

juke inge

Two weeks ago, my friends came from Jakarta to Solo for a short trip. Since one of them has never been to Tawangmangu before, so we stayed in Tawangmangu that weekend. We had a great time having a heart-to-heart sharing about life. It was an enlightening experience for me.

On Monday, before we went back to Solo, I offered to take them for a drive to Cemara Sewu on my Nissan Juke. I just got this car a few months ago and I hadn’t had the chance to try in on steep mountain road. I was curious to see how this good looking car would perform going up the mountain. I was pretty confident that I would be able to take my friends to see beautiful sceneries on top of Cemara Sewu.

After loading our luggage on the car, I took my friends for a scenic drive up the mountain. At the beginning the car rode smoothly, but when we got to the point where the road was very steep and long, no matter how deep I stepped on the accelerator, the Juke could not move forward. I put the car on power mode and pressed the gas pedal to the ground, but the car only moved forward in inches. After a few meters going on like this, we decided to turn back.

In my mind, I was furious. How could this new Nissan Juke not go up Cemara Sewu? It was embarrassing!

When I got back, I complained about this to my Dad. He told my uncle who was very knowledgeable about car to check it out.

Yesterday, my uncle and the mechanic from Nissan took the car for a test drive to Tawangmangu. When they arrived in Karanganyar, they tried to put the car into test and drove it faster. Although it was only a gentle slope, the car just would not run as fast as it should be. They stopped on the side of the road to check. There was no problem with the engine, so they checked the accelerator. When they saw the position of the accelerator, they finally figured it out why the car would not run faster. The accelerator was hindered by the double carpets! When they removed one of the carpets, the accelerator could be pressed down to the ground and the car just ran like the wind!

The carpet was the culprit!

When they told me about this, I was laughing out loud. I could imagine my uncle’s facial expression when they found the culprit! It was so funny!

What can I learn from this?

A trivial thing may cause a big problem, and a big problem may be solved with a simple solution.

In life we are often confronted with problems big or small. When we are faced with big problem, we often assume that we need complicated solutions to solve it…well, not necessarily! Sometimes a simple solution is all we need if we can find the true nature of our problem.

Finally, I need not go to Nissan to complain that their Juke is a joke!

Just like the song by Bee Gees “I Started a Joke”…Oh if I’d only seen that the joke was on me!

Learn and Grow!

Inge Santoso, B. Com