The smell from my car was a plastic bag fused to my exhaust pipe. I didn't even know that could happen. Most of it has been scraped off now. The rest of it will burn away. It's not so bad, I'm told ( Read more... )

I started the morning off right by hitting a patch of black ice as I drove near the train station looking for a parking spot. Fortunately, I had a cleared place on the right that I could skid into with a turn of the wheel, infinitely preferably to nearly hitting the SUV in front of me. New York City's first snow of the season had been wimpy, but ( Read more... )

Honda says my Civic may arrive from out of state today, so I cleaned out The Albatross last night in anticipation, hoping that it being cleaned out would make sure that my Civic shows up today as expected. It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in a car over two and a half years ( Read more... )

I have my VIN number now. Black Honda Civic in 7 to 10 days! (Apparently they have to ship it in from out of state.) Black exterior, gray interior. Happy me.

My salesperson worked on her day off to get me my car. Good her.

Soon I can cut The Albatross loose from my neck and end my voyage of the Saturn-damned!

Today I put a down payment on a new car, my first step to getting rid of The Albatross. It's a Honda Civic EX with adjustable height driver's seat to baby my bum knee, CD/cassette, moon roof with tilt, cruise control, and power mirrors, windows, and doors. Quiet, more powerful engine. It'll either be Nighthawk Black or Vintage Plum. It was more ( Read more... )

The transmission is bucking. Again. Right now this is a two-and-a-half-year-old car with only 24,000 miles on it. The transmission's never been quite right starting around the first half year of my ownership. It took nine years and 120,000 miles for my last car to start having transmission trouble. So last week I called Saturn service to make an ( Read more... )

Actually, I've been rereading all of my entries and thinking I sound like the human embodiment of a mood swing. It's probably due to the various things swarming through my brain: losing a friend, having my birthday, getting stuff together for my brother's birthday this week, getting stuff together for his fiancee's shower two weeks hence, starting ( Read more... )

One of the funny things about my 4 a.m. adventure is that my father's reaction on hearing it was to blame the car, not my distracted pissed-offedness, for the light still being on. The Albatross gets a bad rap, not all of it undeserved....

I still miss my old '88 Mercury Topaz, which I'd called Topa_ due to a piece being missing from its ( Read more... )