A while ago (back in August to be precise), I posted about my continuing adventures in purchasing an automobile. Now that I've had the car for over a month, I bet you're wondering what kind of wacky adventures I've had in it. Well, none actually, but here are some car-related tidbits...

The other day I was playing tennis with Berney, Liz, and our friend Elizabeth, and afterwards I get in the car to give Elizabeth a ride home. I start the car and begin to move forward, but from the depths of the wheelwells ("that part above the wheels") comes an awful screeching noise. I hearken back to the words my father told me when I was young ("Now son, if you're ever driving and the brakes make a screeching noise, it means you need to replace your brakepads"), but soon realize that the noise only happens when the brakes aren't engaged. Soon thereafter, I notice that the big brake light is lit on the console. This is bad, since the lights are only supposed to be on if my car is either: a) just being started up or b) in a heap of flaming wreckage on the side of the highway. After pondering for a moment how I was going to get Elizabeth home in a car that wouldn't go more than 5 miles per hour without emitting a banshee wail, I realized what the brake light meant: my parking brake was on. For you see, I had been parked on an incline and being the safe, intelligent driver that I am, I used the parking brake to make sure my car didn't roll out into the street. After releasing the parking brake, the car was once again scream-free, and I felt like possibly the biggest moron in the world (even bigger than, say, Eddie the Echo flirting with the mom in his latest inane commercial).

On Sunday, I went out to the parking lot to drive across the street to pick up a pizza, and my car was no longer in the spot I had parked it in. In its place was a white car. My car is not white. My car is silver. After about a minute of staring at the parking lot, I realized that it was, in fact, my car but that the sun was shining on it in such a way as to make it look white. The point of this is not that, once again, I am an idiot, but that at no point during this whole thing was I actually surprised that my car appeared to be stolen. In fact, last night I had to park on the street because the lot was full, and I almost expected my car not to be there this morning. I have become so accustomed to the flagrant crime of St. Louis, the stealingest city in the nation, that I am actually more surprised when my car isn't stolen.

So as you can see, I haven't had as many adventures in the car as misadventures with the car.