40 Days Till 40 (Day 28)

STRANGE O-CAR-ENCES

I have been driving back and forth to Carson City a few times a week for rehearsal for The Vagina Monologues and I have noticed something strange.  Normally I really enjoy driving my car because it is the car that people will stare at and smile (or yell out the color, usually while slugging each other).  Believe me when I tell you, however, that my car is surely possessed (and don’t call you Shirley!).

As residents and travelers of the area know, there is a new stretch of freeway between Reno and Carson.  The route greatly shortens the trip, yet forces the drivers to cross a rather high bridge.  The bridge (allegedly the longest Cathedral-style concrete bridge in the US) was several years in the making as various difficulties plagued its construction. 

At a certain spot on this stretch of freeway, my favorite radio station fades out.  Because it is imperative that I drive to music, I will generally turn on my CD player.  Sometimes the CD player starts immediately, but as I cross the bridge it will stutter and stop.  A warning will flash on the LED screen that there is either no CD or a CD error (when neither is true).  Other times, the numbers and letters will flash and flicker or change.  The CD changer will often cycle through the CDs and then turn off. 

Perhaps there is a short in my CD player?  After all, so many things on my car keep breaking.  To date, the items broken include:  the plastic cup holders (all of them), the button to release a rear seat headrest, the tip of the emergency brake (the piece going around the button), the gas tank release, the plastic cover to the side of the driver’s seat which covers the mechanism, the “trunk” compartment cover, the plastic covers that hide the top of the seatbelt, the latch on the glove compartment, most of the outlets, the cigarette lighter, the passenger side mirror (although that one was actually sort of my fault), the front windshield (rock), two hub caps (missing)….  Also, my blinker will keep clicking (not flashing) even after it is off and when the gas gets down to a quarter tank or less, the car will stop accelerating at high speeds, hiccough and accelerate again.  This in a car that is only thirteen-ish years old. 

So why is a short in the CD player so strange?  Because it happens in the exact same spot every single time I make that drive!  There is something about that new stretch of highway that my car just doesn’t like!  Is it aliens?  Gamma rays from the power plant?  Demons?  Ghosts from a Native American burial ground?

Or perhaps it is time for me to “possess” another vehicle.  Hmmmm.

Until tomorrow, Lovelies….

Written for 1/31/14, but posted on 2/2/14 due to strange occurrences indeed.