19 August 2008

Maybe Stephen King was the previous owner

Since my last set of car repairs, in June, my eight-year-old car has developed some eccentric behaviors. There seems to be something not quite right with the electrical system.

From a safety perspective, I seem to be doing okay. Headlights? Check. Turn signals? Check. Break lights? Check.

But one night two weeks ago I was driving down the road and I noticed a strange reflection on the flipped up visor. Two spots of light. I couldn't figure out where the reflection was coming from. I got a little panicky. It looked a little like this:


Scary, right?

Well, not so much with the alien head but definitely with the two glowy spots. Still disturbing, yes?

Turns out it wasn't a reflection at all. The lights in the vanity mirror were showing through the visor. Of course, the lights in the vanity mirror shouldn't have been on. *cue creepy music* The mirror was closed and the visor was flipped up. But they were on. Just on the driver's visor. The passenger visor, with it's own vanity mirror, was non-glowy.

I discovered that I could not find a way to shut off the driver-side, vanity-mirror lights no matter what I did, short of turning the motor off. So I made the decision that they would have to burn themselves out. I wasn't going searching for a fuse that was labeled: "creepy-driver-side-only-vanity-mirror-lights-that-won't-shut-off" and I couldn't see spending big bucks to have a mechanic figure it out.

Plus, they bathe me in a cool, eerie glow which I've decided to find enhancing.*

This weekend, I discovered a new quirk. When I turn the steering wheel to the right, the radio advances from one pre-set station to the next. Sometimes, it hops through several pre-sets.

Um, I wasn't really into that song anyway. You go ahead, Car, and listen to whatever you want.

I can just hear the mechanics gathering around the phone to laugh at me should I decide to call these things in... "Wait, can you repeat that?" *sound of guys trying to muffle their giggling* "You've got a glowy visor and a self-determining radio? Hawhawhaw..."



* Luckily, I'm a "Winter" and this works with my palette.

10 comments:

Gilahi said...

So you're going to start calling your car Christine?

Capitol Hill 20210 said...

lol gil beat me damnit!

have you contacted a Priest yet?

Bilbo said...

Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers on NPR live for moments like this...why not call them. I'd love to hear THIS conversation.

Jonah K. Haslap said...

What I'm freaked out by is the fact that your three comments are time-stamped four hours in the future! What kind of game are you playing at lacochran? Something is very wrong here...very wrong indeed...your car isn't by any chance a flying Delorean?

Thanks for stopping by my blog, come back soon!

Jonah K. Haslap said...

Now my own comment is time-stamped four hours in the future! I'm the first non-Brazilian to travel through time!

Narm said...

There are worse things than having a possessed car...like having a repossessed car.

ZING. I'm here all night, Folks.

Rahul said...

You car has been taken over byt Thundercats. There's nothing wrong with that.

Reya Mellicker said...

I had a friend whose car was struck by lightning. AFter that, she had all kinds of weird electrical things happen, including the doors locking and unlocking themselves with no warning.

Not sure what your mechanics can do about it ... it is weird, though, since I assume your car was not struck by lightning ... right?

rachaelgking said...

You HAVE to call CarTalk (www.cartalk.com)- Tom and Ray always know what to do! I thought they were funny even when I was a munchkin.

At the very least, you'll provide them with some stellar comedy material...

lacochran said...

Gilahi: It's prettier than Beetlejuice, name-wise.

Zipcode: I'm afraid he'll sprinkle holy water over the car, it'll burst into flames, spin around, spit pea soup, and *then* how do I get to work?

Bilbo & LivitLuvit: I am already an unintended source of amusement to too many people.

Jonah: To quote Rocky Horror(with radio proud censorship:) A mental mindf**k can be quite nice.

And thank *you* for stopping by.

Narm: Good one! And Repo Man is one of my favorite cult movies.

Rs27: Well, that solves that.

Reya: I love a good lightening storm. I don't remember being in the car and struck by lightening... maybe it's fried some of my wires, too.