Our Car

We bought a $500 car.  Yes, that's right.  Someone let us borrow it when we first got here, and we ended up buying it.  I mean, you really can't beat $500--even around here--and the A/C and 4-wheel-drive are all in tack.   We figured, Why not?  We'll drive it 'till it dies then get something nicer!  So it's not like we were unprepared.  We knew there would be problems.  

***flash forward two months***

It was one of those good days. I was driving the carpool to preschool. The windows were down and I was blasting AFN which was playing that one song that everyone likes...goes like this...

 "little ditty about Jack and Di-aaaaaane!  Two 'merican kids growin' up in-the-heart-land!"  (You know the one.)  Anyway, all of the sudden, I honked the horn!  Just a little toot.  I thought my arm must have bumped it in my zeal.  Then it happened again.  HONK!  Then again.  HONK HONK!!!

There were cars in front of me.  This was starting to get embarrassing.  I wasn't touching the horn but it was in fact honking.  Repeatedly.  Randomly.  Loudly.

 A second later I arrived at an intersection where a Japanese man stood directing traffic around some road construction.  The horn blared at him.  I raised my hands in the air and looked sheepish.  He laughed and laughed while I drove away honking and pounding the steering wheel in frustration and annoyance.

By the time I got Sam to preschool, the random honking had stopped and I had partially recovered from my embarrassment.

In the next few days, the horn would blow at random times.  Sometimes going over a bump, sometimes just a random toot to say hello to a passerby.

I rolled my eyes.  What do you expect from a $500 car?

Then one night, at about 8 p.m.  I heard someone honking outside.  

Loud and long.  

Shattering the quiet of the peaceful evening.  

It caught my attention.  

I listened.  

I realized it was in fact MY car making that noise.

CRAP!  

I jumped up and ran for the door  yelling behind me 

"DOUG!!!  GET A SCREWDRIVER!!!"

I barely made it in to the car.  The noise almost burst my eardrums.  I started my futile pounding and pulling in a vain effort to make it stop.  

Finally Doug arrived with a screwdriver.    With a few wrenches and a little wire pulling he got it to turn off.

It was a quick fix.  

Later, we would take more drastic and permanent action...

But at least, there will be no more random honking.

Ever.

And that's what we get for buying 

a $500 car.

The End