My Other Car Is Held Together With Duct Tape

When it came time to replace the Ramamobile last week, I wanted to fall in love with another American made car, or, you know, a Prius. Instead, I took home a compact German SUV.

I've always felt a little uncomfortable with what I consider my undeserved bounty, and yet I didn't put up much of a fight when the P-Dawg expressed his desire to purchase this vehicle. My comfort level increased significantly when I sat upon the leather upholstery, cranked up the butt warming mechanism, opened the panoramic moon roof, and started cruising around my 'hood with L1thuanian folk songs blaring from the speakers.

On the day after we bought the car, I was navigating cautiously through a construction zone with my hands in ten and two position when the driver in front of me hit an orange barrel and sent it flying into my front bumper. There was a loud crunching noise as the barrel ricocheted off my car and into the tree lawn, but I invoked the awesome power of magical thinking and kept on driving as though nothing had occurred.

It was only after pulling into my driveway some ten minutes later that I got out to conduct a thorough inspection, only to find the bumper scratched in several places and a few (smallish) parts altogether missing. There was no choice but to return to the accident scene for a reluctant reconnaissance mission, which consisted of me darting back and forth into traffic on a Frogger-esque trajectory until all the Beemer bits were retrieved.

Fortunately, my dad was able to pop those little suckers right back into place like so many overpriced Legos, and he even buffed out most of the scratch marks so I didn't have to take it into the shop.

Still, I just knew something like this would happen.

Instant karma, what a bitch.