My 2008 Toyota Prius just turned 30. Thirty thousand miles that is. And it just had its first hiccup.

Apparently the little hybrid that could needs its regular checkups just like the rest of us.

On Sunday my wife and I were leaving the parking lot of our local Smith’s store and our little blue Prius (I should say her little blue Prius because she gets to drive it most of the time) kept popping out of reverse. A fan in the engine compartment roared in over-drive, trumping the normally whisper quiet ride we were used to. It was hot out and we had jumped in, powered the car on with the air conditioning left set on high and started right off on our merry way as we too often do.

Note: usually I turn the A/C off when I park my other, non-hybrid car because I know the toll it takes on a regular engine-battery configuration to turn the ignition on with anything else (lights, A/C, radio) already on.

Admittedly, I’m too often less diligent with the Prius, but my wife never turns anything off in either car. So, being the de facto automotive expert in our household by virtue of the fact that I can’t give birth, I turned the A/C off, rolled down the windows and tried to put the car in reverse again.

Success! The loud whirl of the fan had disappeared. But again, our previously ever reliable little hybrid popped out of gear about two seconds after I put it in reverse.

“Hmmm,” I thought, resting my foot on the brake to stop our backwards glide down the gentle slope of the Smith’s parking lot.

“Stop putting it in idle,” my wife suggested.

“Hmmm,” I thought some more.

I tried putting the car in drive to get back into our parking space, but we only went forward about two feet before it popped out of gear again.

“Hmmm.” This was a real puzzler. Loud fan noise gone, but car still won’t stay in gear.

I pushed the Park button. The little Martian green light didn’t stay on like it usually did. I took my foot off the brake. Nope, we weren’t in park and we just lost the two feet we had gained back into the safety of the parking space.

But, I still had full control of the steering, so it didn’t seem as though the engine had stalled. A real puzzler indeed.

Fortunately the Smith’s wasn’t very crowded and we weren’t attracting any attention yet. The last thing I wanted to see was the ignorant grin of some fat jowl Texas transplant behind the windshield of his or her commuter vehicle (aka giant white pickup truck with tinted windows and no tow package).

“I’m not putting it in idle,” I replied patiently to my lovely wife who obviously knows nothing about cars. “It won’t stay in gear.”

“Then try turning it off and then back on,” she advised.

Now that was a useful suggestion. I had been guilty more than once of trying to make the car go when it wasn’t actually turned on. (I’m telling you it’s normally a very, very quiet ride.)

So I pushed the Power button, waited a couple of seconds with everything off and quiet and then pushed the Power button again. The dash lights and indicators, including the red Maintenance Required icon we had been ignoring for about two months all came on as usual. (In our defense, we had programmed an oil change every 5,000 miles into the on-board computer when we bought the car and knew we had missed the oil change at 25k miles, but you motorheads can still chuckle to yourself if you must

I searched the information rich dashboard for a clue. The little red icon (a car with its hood up) seemed to be enjoying its little I-told-you-so moment in the sun.

“Well, I guess we’ll get to test out the free tow service that’s supposed to come with our State Farm insurance,” I said hopefully.

“Why not just leave it here until tomorrow?” my wife suggested. “You can get it back into a parking place and we can walk home.”

The sun was doing a good job living up to its reputation in June in Vegas, but parking and walking home was another suberb idea from my little Georgia peach. I sure didn’t want to give my Ranger Rover and monster SUV owning neighbor the satisfaction of seeing our sensible, environmentally friendly, though presently wounded little hybrid towed home on a Sunday afternoon.

“I guess,” I sighed.

But then the automotive genius in me struck (for real this time!). I put the car in drive and held the little two inch gear shift in place. It didn’t stall. I drove it around the parking lot to test my quick fix solution explaining my automotive rational to my wife … no stalling … no awful noises. Eureka!

Holding the gearshift in place we got home, unloaded the groceries and then took the other car to go check out The Pond at Green Valley as we’d originally planned. But since we’re no longer in our twenties and not single, we studied it from a nearby balcony and decided to forgo the inevitable $10 drinks and sympathetic glances our presence there would probably generate. Instead we went back home and opened a nice bottle of wine and I watched Orlando win the NBA Eastern Conference championship over Cleveland. (Note: it’s sometimes hard to bet against a team you like, but it makes you feel smart when you’re right.)

The next morning I spoke with a Toyota service rep and decided to drive the Prius the five miles to Findlay Toyota. I had no problem and in fact, it stayed in gear the whole way. All by itself!

“Could it be that the Toyota Prius has a on-board fix and repair robot not mentioned in the owner’s manual?” I joked with Art, my randomly appointed service technician.

“Maybe. But we’ll check it out anyway,” he replied blankly. Maybe he’d already heard that kind of wise crack a couple of hundred times and didn’t find it as amusing as I did. Or, maybe it’s true and they just don’t want the competition to know.

Anyway, a couple of $20 parts later, one for the electronics in the gear console and another for a fan that cools a hot water overflow tank in the engine, we had our little hybrid back topped off with a much needed car wash too. All for no cost to us!

So happy anniversary to my hybrid and hats off to the U.S. workers in the six (6) Toyota auto plants in this country!

On this, the second day after the G.M. bankruptcy (and subsequent $50 billion government bailout) that left the entire management team in place that ran the company into the ground (sans the CEO they let go 2 months ago) I hope there is a recognizable message. Build a quality product with state-of-the-art redundant engineering that works, stand behind it and you’ll have a happy, loyal customer base.

Or, keep handing out bonuses for jobs poorly done and you’ll be able to count the number of G.M. anniversaries from June 1, 2009 on one hand.

Word.