Monday, April 16, 2007
saab curse resolved
Turns out I have mistakenly accused a certain Saab for being cursed (read about the curse here, here, and here). Upon further review, the car was not cursed. Rather, I'm the one who's cursed. When yet another weird car thing happened to me last weekend, I came to the conclusion that any car in my possession will be cursed. So whoever bought the Saab, rest assured, the curse stayed with me. And that Lotus Exige S I'll be buying as soon as I manage to save up $57,915, cringe in fear.
When getting into my nice new(ish) Scion to go to the gym, I noticed there was a pine needle on my windshield. Only I realized that I don't have any pine trees growing in my garage (although the fake Christmas tree is in a box in the garage). It wasn't a pine needle, it was a big, ugly crack. It wasn't there when I parked the car the day before. And no one drove it or even looked at it funny from the time I parked it until the time the crack appeared. Dismayed, I went ahead with my gym plans anyway; you don't get this buff by sitting around crying about windshields. I left the car in the parking lot, and an hour and a half later, the crack was another foot longer. Once again, the car was not even driven; there is, however, a possibility is was looked at funny during this time.
It wasn't until now that I began reconstructing all the weird stuff that's happened to my cars over the years. For your entertainment, I present a timeline of all the strange, true things that have happened to cars in my possession. All dates are approximate, since I have a really bad memory.
1995: 1994 Honda Civic - wheel stolen. I walked out to my car, parked in the Grove City College parking lot, to find that an entire wheel was stolen from my car. It was just sitting there with three wheels, the fourth wheel completely gone, and the car was resting on its axle. I'm not one of those guys with nice wheels or anything either. They were standard issue 13 inch steel Civic wheels.
1996: 1994 Honda Civic - parked car hit and run. On campus at the University of Texas (go Longhorns!), I walked out to my expertly parallel-parked car to see that both the front and rear of the car were smashed. Someone had rammed the back of the car, pushing it forward into a third car. Repairs cost thousands of dollars, but insurance covered it (USAA rules!). Interesting side note: an astute witness saw the whole thing, and the perp was caught and punished.
1996: 1994 Honda Civic - passenger window broken, stereo stolen. Well, this is just bad luck, not really indicative of a curse, and barely made the list. But it still sucked.
1997: 1994 Honda Civic - driver window broken, nothing stolen. This is more like the curse I know. Someone went to the trouble of breaking my window, then didn't even bother to take anything! I didn't have an alarm, so it's not like something scared them off. Cleaning up broken glass is always fun though.
2001: 1999 Honda Accord - windshield break #1. A pebble found its way to my wife's windshield, but I was at the wheel, so it counts. This may seem like an everyday unfortunate event, but most pebbles cause small chips. This one caused a large crack, meaning we had to replace whole windshield. To add insult to injury, the repair place scolded us for not bringing it in before the crack got so large. You're right, we shouldn't have waited those 13 nanoseconds. Sorry about that one!
2002: 1998 Acura Integra - Waterlocked engine. This was during the Great Summer of 2002 Semi-Annual San Antonio flood, during which more rain fell on July 1 than had ever fallen in any entire month of July in San Antonio. Some sneaky water managed to find its way into my engine, causing about $5,000 worth of damage. Once again, insurance paid for the damage (and once again, USAA rocks!).
2004: 2004 Saab 9-3 - mystery leather slice. A mysterious, 4 inch slice appeared in the leather in the passenger seat, as if someone had taken an X-Acto knife to it. As far as I know, no one sat in the seat while carrying an X-Acto knife in their pocket, so to this day I have no idea how it could have gotten there.
2004: 2004 Saab 9-3 - rat makes a home in my engine bay. Yes, a rat decided that the engine bay of a Saab was a good place to make a home. But he also decided that a good way to pass the time in his new home was to chew on wires and tear up sound-deadening material.
2005: 2004 Saab 9-3 - mystery dent. A mystery dent appeared from out of nowhere on the rear quarter panel. This apparently happened at my parking garage at work. The mystery dent was somewhere in between a ding and a full-fledged dent. Doesn't seem to have been caused by a door. Maybe someone leaned up against it? Kicked it? Who knows? The cost to fix was just short of my insurance deductible, so I had to pay out of pocket.
Interesting side note: Last night I found the front license plate for the Saab hiding in my closet. Coincidence??? ¶ monger187 wrote this on 4/16/2007
When getting into my nice new(ish) Scion to go to the gym, I noticed there was a pine needle on my windshield. Only I realized that I don't have any pine trees growing in my garage (although the fake Christmas tree is in a box in the garage). It wasn't a pine needle, it was a big, ugly crack. It wasn't there when I parked the car the day before. And no one drove it or even looked at it funny from the time I parked it until the time the crack appeared. Dismayed, I went ahead with my gym plans anyway; you don't get this buff by sitting around crying about windshields. I left the car in the parking lot, and an hour and a half later, the crack was another foot longer. Once again, the car was not even driven; there is, however, a possibility is was looked at funny during this time.
It wasn't until now that I began reconstructing all the weird stuff that's happened to my cars over the years. For your entertainment, I present a timeline of all the strange, true things that have happened to cars in my possession. All dates are approximate, since I have a really bad memory.
1995: 1994 Honda Civic - wheel stolen. I walked out to my car, parked in the Grove City College parking lot, to find that an entire wheel was stolen from my car. It was just sitting there with three wheels, the fourth wheel completely gone, and the car was resting on its axle. I'm not one of those guys with nice wheels or anything either. They were standard issue 13 inch steel Civic wheels.
1996: 1994 Honda Civic - parked car hit and run. On campus at the University of Texas (go Longhorns!), I walked out to my expertly parallel-parked car to see that both the front and rear of the car were smashed. Someone had rammed the back of the car, pushing it forward into a third car. Repairs cost thousands of dollars, but insurance covered it (USAA rules!). Interesting side note: an astute witness saw the whole thing, and the perp was caught and punished.
1996: 1994 Honda Civic - passenger window broken, stereo stolen. Well, this is just bad luck, not really indicative of a curse, and barely made the list. But it still sucked.
1997: 1994 Honda Civic - driver window broken, nothing stolen. This is more like the curse I know. Someone went to the trouble of breaking my window, then didn't even bother to take anything! I didn't have an alarm, so it's not like something scared them off. Cleaning up broken glass is always fun though.
2001: 1999 Honda Accord - windshield break #1. A pebble found its way to my wife's windshield, but I was at the wheel, so it counts. This may seem like an everyday unfortunate event, but most pebbles cause small chips. This one caused a large crack, meaning we had to replace whole windshield. To add insult to injury, the repair place scolded us for not bringing it in before the crack got so large. You're right, we shouldn't have waited those 13 nanoseconds. Sorry about that one!
2002: 1998 Acura Integra - Waterlocked engine. This was during the Great Summer of 2002 Semi-Annual San Antonio flood, during which more rain fell on July 1 than had ever fallen in any entire month of July in San Antonio. Some sneaky water managed to find its way into my engine, causing about $5,000 worth of damage. Once again, insurance paid for the damage (and once again, USAA rocks!).
2004: 2004 Saab 9-3 - mystery leather slice. A mysterious, 4 inch slice appeared in the leather in the passenger seat, as if someone had taken an X-Acto knife to it. As far as I know, no one sat in the seat while carrying an X-Acto knife in their pocket, so to this day I have no idea how it could have gotten there.
2004: 2004 Saab 9-3 - rat makes a home in my engine bay. Yes, a rat decided that the engine bay of a Saab was a good place to make a home. But he also decided that a good way to pass the time in his new home was to chew on wires and tear up sound-deadening material.
2005: 2004 Saab 9-3 - mystery dent. A mystery dent appeared from out of nowhere on the rear quarter panel. This apparently happened at my parking garage at work. The mystery dent was somewhere in between a ding and a full-fledged dent. Doesn't seem to have been caused by a door. Maybe someone leaned up against it? Kicked it? Who knows? The cost to fix was just short of my insurance deductible, so I had to pay out of pocket.
Interesting side note: Last night I found the front license plate for the Saab hiding in my closet. Coincidence??? ¶ monger187 wrote this on 4/16/2007
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