My Car Is Trying To Kill Me:

A tale of attempted murder and betrayal.

I always like getting back out West because out here I have access to a car. After spending eight months riding the crowded buses in London, or walking from one place to another, it’s easy to develop a certain longing for the freedom that comes with having a vehicle at your personal disposal. That is why whenever I get home I always end up driving everywhere for a few days. It doesn’t matter if the trip is a seven hour marathon from Calgary (where I am right now) to Nelson (my hometown) or just down the street to the 7-Eleven, I am always using the car to get from point A to point B. Of course, the novelty soon wears off as I begin to realize that I am slowly being turned into the family taxi driver, but despite this inevitable period of disillusionment I have always thought of my family car in a positive light; until now.

It all started about two weeks ago when I was in a mall parking lot. I had just finished killing some time in a Sport Check and had returned to the car so that I could drive home. After putting the keys in the ignition, I found that the car didn’t want to start. All I heard was a sputtering gasp each time I tried to start the engine. Taking this turn of events in stride, I simply gave the car a few moments, and then made another attempt, which happened to work. As I drove out of the parking lot, I soon forgot about the whole incident. Unfortunately, the same thing happened again the next day and the day after that.

Now, normally I would take the car to a family friend, who is a mechanic, and have him look at it. But since the car always started after a few failed attempts I figured the problem was only minor in nature. However, this did not stop me from heaping piles of verbal abuse on the car, especially when it failed to act up when anyone else was driving. Problems only arose when I was behind the wheel, and after a while I began to think that the car had it in for me.

This theory was soon confirmed, as the car tried on two separate occasions to kill me. The first attempt occurred when I was driving the car along a major highway through Calgary during the noon rush hour. I was in the middle lane of a three-lane road, travelling at 110 km/hr, when all of a sudden the car begins to cut out on me! Here I am, zipping down the highway with transport trailers and other vehicles all around me, and the car, which only acts up when I drive it, decides to start stalling out. At first I froze and gripped the wheel. Then I started to swear and mash the gas pedal, which only seemed to make things worse. Finally, with my speed dropping, I freaked out and made a hard turn towards the shoulder on the right hand side of the road. Once there, I let the car sit for about ten minutes. After that it ran fine, and I refused to drive it for several days.

Failing in its first attempt, the car soon found another window of opportunity as I was driving back to Calgary from BC. As I was climbing a stretch of highway in the mountains, the car once again decides to try and stall out. Only this time I think its plan was to strand me in the middle of nowhere rather than have me die in some horrific noon hour collision. Thankfully, I was able to get to the top of the pass and give the car another time out. After that, it was smooth sailing for the rest of the trip, and now that I’m back in Calgary I think I’ll look into public transportation until the car has been to a mechanic or an exorcist.