Too bad I won't be needing the car anymore, because I will be taking the short bus from now on.

Let me tell you a story about why I am a savant. Magna cum Laude and honor societies mean precisely jack when you've got this level of common sense.

You've been hearing me bitch for a few days now about my latest car trouble—the sudden loss of pick-up. I could stand on the gas pedal, feel like it was pressed to the floor, and the needle would still creep ever so slowly and steadily to an appropriate speed. Someone suggested that it might be a belt, and when someone says the word "belt" in the same sentence as "car," all I hear is "cha-ching." I've been fretting aloud to anyone who will listen over how much it's going to cost to get it fixed this time, I've been unsure of whether I should even drive the thing. I've been regretting the purchase for the bazillionth time, maligning Best Volvo and the manufacturers of Volkswagens everywhere, I've contemplated a murder-suicide involving me, V-Dubs, and a steep cliff.

But on my way to work this morning, un milagro—I, with the automotive knowledge of Paris Hilton, cracked the case. With no help from anyone, I fixed my car. How did I do it?







I pulled the bunched-up floormat out from under the gas pedal.

Please, no applause.

I'm too ecstatic to feel much shame over this, but give me a couple of days. And thank the Lord for small favors—the first thing I planned to do when I got to work was call the mechanic and set up an appointment. I'd much rather chuckle over my nimroddery with all of you than with the humorless service guy at Dorschel.

So now I feel guilty for thinking such violent thoughts about my car, when in recent weeks we've forged a much healthier relationship. I've had something of a revelation about the bond between (hu)man and machine. Now, I have often mocked those who over-anthropomorphize their cars (you know who you are). I will not stop doing so. I also refuse to pet something that has no nervous system and thus no tactile sense, and I will not impose a gender on something that has not been assigned one by physiology and that lacks the capacity to choose one for itself, ala a GRS-choosing parent. However, I have stopped viewing my car as an enemy piece of machinery hell-bent on my financial and psychological destruction (with the exception of the lapse described above), and more like an ailing friend or a sickly pet that I've adopted and now must care for. I think it helped when I found out the latest diagnosis—it needs two new control arms. My car has... arms? What a pitiable condition.... the poor little thing has two broken arms. Not only that, but they're going to need to be amputated and replaced by prostheses.

My car is not a demented artificial intelligence. It is a Lifetime movie subject. It doesn't hate me; it only aims to please. It is Johnny no. 5. No disassemble!