Car Talk, The Dispersion Principle: Male Answer Syndrome Strikes Again, August 11, 2007

On this week's encore edition of Car Talk, we dive headfirst into treacherous marital waters, thanks to writer Laura Doyle. Her thesis? The secret to a happy marriage is a submissive wife. Are Tom and Ray buying it, or is our first caller on the mark when she says it's a wife who just pretends to be submissive? What about a submissive husband? Somehow, the answer to all this may lie in Ray's tale of his broken bird clock.

Balancing out his saga of martial duplicity, we've got a tale of marital devotion. Ann's husband traveled from Georgia down to Florida to get his vasectomy reversed. She thanked him by driving like a banshee to get him back home. What do they have to show for their generosity? Right now, it's just a grinding noise coming from their Caravan. Find out if the post-op race home did the damage.

Also, out in Flagstaff, Noah's "going away" for 14 months. He won't tell us where (we think it involves three square meals a day and a cot), but he does want to know how to store his van so it'll run when he gets released - sorry, "returns home".

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, Rick's girlfriend just got her VW Fox back from the shop. They fixed her problem, but her car seems to have aged over the weekend - by 20,000 miles. Did her mechanics take it on the Mother of All Road Trips?

Still with us? Excellent, because you'll hear one of the most twisted car classifieds ever, followed by several minutes positively unencumbered by the thought process, thanks to Dave in New Jersey. He's getting better remote range by holding his keyless entry under his chin. Or so he says.

Then, Tom and Ray visit the perilous world of Male Answer Syndrome, Ray develops a "dispersion theory of electromagnetism�and the rest of us shake our heads in unmitigated incredulity in this week's Call of the Week. [Broadcast Date: August 11, 2007]

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