And that's when I knew...

A gust of wind blew in the blinding gasp of pain, the bright light, the haze.

My car had decided to eat me.

I should have known, long ago, that this would happen. My car has been generally homicidal for years, the warning signs were there.

Like the time I was driving my friends Jennifer and Andy home from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The windshield fogged over, then froze, obscuring all areas of vision. I attempted to drive through a "Congested Area" with some version of calm as my friends gaped in horror. I eventually found that I had been driving in the middle of the two north-bound lanes.

I love my car like some people love their boyfriends, it is a love of grim tolerance, of neccessity. I wonder at times why I have this cross to bear. After all, what has my car given me? Beside the nasty headache/concussion which now plagues me, that is.

Not a passenger side mirror, that was an option the former owner opted against. Not shelter from the cruel wind--it blows straight in. Definately not from the rain, either. That pours right through the windshield "seal" which my father has attempted to fix more times than I can count. Nor has my car given my a breath of cool air in the hot summer--no air conditioning. The windows can barely even be rolled down without the agony of having one's hand caught in between the round portion and the body of the handle. This makes for amusing trips through the bank drive-through. I also know that if I forget to turn the lights of my car off, the warning beep will not tell me so, as it has long been broken. Therefore, my father has the unfortunate task of being "on call" with his jumper cables.

My car has not afforded me safety, either. I have the security of "Suicide belts;" the seat belts which move to automatically "protect" you as soon as you sit down. That is until you hit something, at which time they snap like rubber bands, allowing you to kiss glass at sixty miles an hour. I have the peace of mind, after an episode of Dateline, to note that the frame of my tiny Honda would fit nicely underneath the frame of any other make or model of car, allowing the head and torso of the driver (me) to be neatly sheared off in case of an accident.

Detorsification, I call it. And, coupled with the fact that my car is the same gray as pavement and the stormy Indiana sky, I know that if a car fails to see me, I will surely die. I just hope my father shells out more for the funeral than we have at the car lot, recently. I better have silk inside my coffin. From those endangered worms. No polyester for me, no polymer bi-product. And don't tell me it looks just as good. I'll know, and I'll bring back every mean relative I ever had from the sweet embrace of the crypt, just to haunt you...