My Honda Death Pact

I don't know how this happened, but apparently I've signed some kind of death pact with my 1996 Honda Accord EX. This pact involves my Honda trying to kill itself itself about once a year and me paying a buttload to bring it back to life. Pretty simple, right?

The latest thousand dollar charge involved pretty much every seal in the engine bleeding oil at roughly the same time, then spilling onto my radiator hose and my timing belt and fuck all else.

But that's just a start. Here's a non-sequential list off the top of my head of various Honda capers since I bought it from my aunt in 2002:

My Honda has been broken into five or six times. The first time was in Vancouver and the thieves stole my gf's laptop and most of the clothes my mother had made for me. A couple of times nothing or just little stuff has been stolen but recently my Honda suffered a classic smash and grab while parked in front of Sweeney's Saloon. What was taken? My beloved fifteen year old baseball glove and some brand new spikes.

A curse on thou, mutherfuckas!

Two years ago somebody pulled a hit and run on my car and they must have been cooking. After walking across campus to my car, on a bitterly cold February afternoon, I found my poor Honda improbably stuck in the middle of the street, turned at a 90 degree angle from the curb, with broken bits of car scattered all around it. The hit and run bastards had crunched my driver side bumper and the impact was bad enough that it warped the frame of the car totally and my insurance company totaled the Honda out and cut me a check-I then took that check straight off to the auto body shop and got it fixed at only a $100 net loss, though the repair wasn't perfect and the trunk leaked rainwater until I poured an entire bottle of silicon adhesive into the cracks.

Damn your eyes, hit and run asshole!

Once, on a first date at the MN zoo, my radiator melted down and took the rest of the engine with it. My date and I were nearly poisoned to death by the smell as we drove home, periodically stopping to let the engine cool. Oh, how we laughed! Except me, $2,000 later.

Once I pulled out in front of a little old lady and we went smash-that one was my bad! And costly.

I recently had to replace the door latch and the window motor for my driver's side. After the latch broke, it took about five minutes to roll down my window and open my car door from the outside. Always a cool way to pull up to a party!

Stunningly, I've only had two or three flat tires over the years. The worst occurred when I was driving into town for a wedding, the tire thudding ominously. Why was this the worst? Because I had to put on the temporary doughnut while super hungover the next day and then spend the afternoon in a Wal-Mart in Rochester waiting for their tire center to put a new one on. There is a lot of morbid obesity in the Wal-Mart scooter riding crowd, I tell you what.

And finally, the creme d'la creme, once my Honda was stolen ON CHRISTMAS MORNING. That's right-I was walking to my car, gifts in hand on my way to my Dad's house, only to find that someone had stolen the Honda from the spot right across from my apartment. But, since our death pact is in blood and oil, I manged to FIND THE HONDA MYSELF when the cops failed to do so, locating it in my own neighborhood, the driver's side door left ajar and the ignition stripped "Chicago Punch Style". It took two visits to Bonefe's to undue all that damage, including a new battery because the old one had been drained too far by the oh so clever thieves. Also, the thieves smashed my Progressive Insurance good driver monitor thing, perhaps believing it had some kind of tracking capability.

So why are we still together, you ask? Well, my 1996 Honda Accord EX has a sun roof and a working tape deck and neither things are to be given up lightly, not if you value your soul!