My car,

Gunmetal Margot, had a lot of problems. One of them was very long-standing. So far as I know, she had an absurd electrical wiring issue that involved one plastic fuse as part of the power flow to her headlights, interior lights, cd player, and brake lights since before I got her. This was stupid. She managed to do all right with it until a short appeared in February.

I replaced the fuse at least once a day until finally Margot rebelled and killed the fuse I put in. She melted it so that no other fuse could be inserted. If you tried, you could hold it while Margot quickly and sparkily melted it into a hot metal nub hugging the transparent green plastic. Needless to say, this display did not make the headlights work.

Gunmetal Margot and I went to see the car-electrical-problems doctor (I'd say it was the car equivalent of a neurologist) and got her brains rewired. Everything works so well that I actually bothered to set the clock on the CD player. I don't have to worry that it's a waste of time, because I KNOW that when I drive over railroad tracks it won't short out and go dead.

Alas, my life is apparently incomplete without electrical problems. I woke up yesterday morning to watch Matt Lauer squint at people in Blacksburg on the Today show before work, and lo, the television did not work. A cursory investigation led me to discover that the sockets in the wall in my living room had become ornamental.

I reset the breakers. All of them. Twice. Nothing.

I called my landlord and she suggested I get an extension cord if I wanted to watch TV. She'd get someone to check it out ASAP, but that usually means, in her experience, a week.

As if that didn't suck enough, there's this happening. It opens in June, so I probably won't be living in the area any more. Is it better that I won't be around to go? Something tells me that they wouldn't take too kindly to my uncontrollable laughter.

Unfortunately, this is not really a joke.

MUSIC: rilo kiley: three hopeful thoughts