Each of the three cars I have owned … hold on, was it three? Let’s count.

My first car exploded into a fireball and melted into a big mound of car before my eyes precisely 23 hours after its long-standing overheating issue had been repaired. Making so many repair shop visits about this concern had been annoying, but some quick fixes are neither. The next car was also prone to overheating—steam, not flame, in this case—and I perpetually thought it was ten minutes from an explosion as well. When one has owned a car that one watched meet its end via self-immolation, one develops a sensitivity to over-heating. PTSD, even. But I saw that car on the roads of my town for a full five years after I sold it. My last car was repossessed because I was not an adult back then, and banks like doing business with adults. So, yes, three cars.

The tools of life and I do not have a functional working agreement.
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