I'm fairly sure I've mentioned my parents regard me as an automobile jinx. Since I got my driver's license, my being back home typically from college has correlated strongly with one or more vehicles malfunctioning in ways that require reasonably pricey repairs and visits to mechanics who live three counties away because my father insists on going to the same shop where he started going in 1959 because there was a really good guy there then and he's certain the new owners maintain those high standards. For a while this could be attributed to my father's inclination to buy no car that hadn't had as many miles as a used Apollo Command Module had racked up. But as I entered graduate school my mother was finally seduced by the prospect of owning a new car with a warranty and certified qualifications and no tendency for a battery to explode just because you were taking it out to test whether it had gone bad. And since then it's grown more suspicious when reasonably new cars break down the week or two I'm in town, even when I haven't touched them.
Back around February, for example, after my experience with running out of gas and having to use my passport in place of a driver's license (don't tell my parents), there was the incident of my father's car's headlights burning out and brakes going bad, almost simultaneously to that moment on the Hutch where my mother's car got a flat tire and the repair truck had to make its way through dense jungles, blazing deserts, and German-occupied territory from 1916 in order to find us. (The car had fallen off the jack and the base of the car was laying flat on the road, so there was no way for us to lift it.)
I mentioned my extended brake problems recently. Well, Monday, my father had a flat tire on his car and had to get it replaced. The tire place (and there's a sub-anecdote here about Burger King that I'll get to in time) rotated his other tires and pointed out that his front pair were in pretty bad shape and would need replacement soon, and sure enough, yes, they're almost worn out. He'd just made an appointment to get the replacement tires for that when my mother reported a tire going flat on her car too. I'd like to point out, I've never driven my mother's car, and last rode in it three weeks ago. Whatever it is, I'm not doing it.
Trivia: Punishment for breaking Russia's 1664 ban on smoking included slitting of the lips, flogging, castration, or exile. Source: Napoleon's Buttons, Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson.
Currently Reading: ``I Am Not A Crook'', Art Buchwald. Another library book sale book. Watergate-era Buchwald, quite funny. And a valuable reminder of various Nixon sleaziness I'd forgotten over the years. It's hard to remember that however bad one does remember Nixon being, the reality was worse.