Happy birthday to my car

I had a request to tell the saga of my "new car," and decided that its 1st anniversary of belonging to me would be a good time to celebrate all that the poor dear has survived during this first year.

Thanksgiving weekend, 2008: My grandfather bought my car as a graduate school graduation present.

January, 2009: I walked out of my apartment on the second morning of my internship, on the phone for the umpteenth time with AT&T trying to get my internet turned on. I got in my car and around the same time finally got connected to a live human being on the other end of the phone. I put my car in reverse and heard a little scrape as as I back up, but assumed I was dragging a branch. I was too busy yelling at the AT&T rep to let a little branch slow me down. By the Grace of God, one of the maintenance workers at my apartment complex (I'll call him Henry) saw me backing out and flagged me down to stop before I put the car in drive. I hung up on my human and got out of the car. My "branch" turned out to be a concrete parking stop. A giant bolt was sticking out of the top and had hung under the front bumper of my new car. I drug the entire parking stop out of the parking space, and had I put the car in drive, I would have certainly ruined some of the under-parts of my car. Unfortunately, the bolt was too tall for Henry to simply scoot the parking stop out from under my car. It hung on the front bumper (still haven't figured out how I got it stuck under there in the first place). I suggested using the jack to raise the car. At this point another apartment resident pulled into the parking lot and got out to help. He and Henry jacked up the car, but it would not go high enough to get the parking stop out. Finally, Henry had to retrieve a giant saw and saw the bolt off so that the whole thing could finally get dragged out.

March, 2009: I drove from Houston to Austin for a career fair. On the way back I drove through a construction zone that had recently opened for thru-traffic. At the edge of Austin, I began to feel my car shaking and making a "ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk" sound. I pulled over to see if I had a flat, but all of my tires appeared to be properly inflated. As I slowly pulled back onto the main road, the shaking seemed to subside, however, as I gained speed it began full force. My steering wheel was even visibly moving. I called a good friend from Bastrop that works in Austin, hoping that he might be near me and able to help. He suggested that maybe a weight had flown off one of my tires and directed me to the nearest tire store where he promised to meet me. I hobbled down the road in the slow lane, afraid to drive too fast for fear of really hurting my tires, wheels or car in general. When I got to the tire store, I told the person working what my car's symptoms were, and followed him out to have a look. In one quick glance he said, "I can tell you exactly what's wrong. You've got about 3 extra pounds of tar on your tires." He said that it wouldn't hurt to drive it like that and the tar should wear off, but it would be annoying for awhile. He directed me to a high-pressure car wash, where my friend ended up meeting me. If anyone is wondering, high pressure hoses do not take tar off off tires. We ended up using our fingernails and screwdrivers to peel off as much as possible, but barely made a dent in the tar. It did eventually wear off on my way to Houston. And I got stuck in a storm halfway home.

April, 2009: My friends came to visit for my birthday. We all went downtown in my car to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. I was at a stoplight, which might or might not have been green, and felt a tap from behind. "Did that guy just hit you?" one of my friends asked. Um...yes. I got out of the car to assess the situation and talk to the guy in the car behind me. Fortunately, there were no scars and we went our separate ways.

June, 2009: I was in a hurry on the way to a friend's house to meet the IKEA delivery man. I was driving around 65 mph in the center lane of a 3 lane highway. I saw brake lights ahead, but but traffic started moving normally so I didn't decrease my speed. All of a sudden, I saw a large object in the middle of the road that turned out to be a ladder. Going 65 mph, there was no physical way to stop short of it (not to mention I would most certainly be rear-ended if I tried). With cars in the lanes on either side of me, changing lanes was also not an option, so I gritted my teeth and tried to straddle it (in my low-rider car), knowing that I would surely strip the oil pan. I heard a quick "SCRAPE!!" and looked for my oil light (or any others) to come on and expected my car to begin shaking or pulling. I intended to pull over to assess the damage, but when nothing unusual happened immediately, I decided to try to make it the rest of the way to my friend's house. I called him pretty shaken up (poor guy was also the one sitting next to me during the rear-ending incident), and he promised to look the car over when I arrived. He didn't see anything unusual, but we decided it was still a good idea to drive it to the shop and have it officially checked out. I called the Honda house and told them what happened and they said to bring it in. I mapped out a route that did not require me to get on the highway just in case I needed to pull over quickly. I got there and a mechanic immediately greeted me. I explained to him why I was there, and he said "well let's put it on the lift and you and I can look at it together." He grabbed a flashlight and we walked under the car and saw nothing! Well, almost nothing. He pointed out a small spot that was scraped and said "that's all I see, and it may not even be from the ladder." I saw the spot to which he was referring and said, "no, I'm pretty sure I know what that's from." Give the ridiculous ladder scenario about which I had just told him, I decided it best not to tell him that the scrape in question was mostly likely due to the time I got the parking stop stuck under the car. (He also asked me at one point whether it was a wooden or fiberglass ladder. Seriously?? If I had had time to analyze the ladder I would have had time to stop!)

Fortunately (knock-on-wood), I haven't had anymore incidents like these since then. The car, somehow, still looks almost new. I'm pretty sure it could withstand a hurricane.